Student donations help restock local food pantries

The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y.
·2 min read

May 28—Local food pantries will benefit from the generosity of SUNY Oneonta students.

According to a media release from the college, The Lord's Table community feeding ministry in downtown Oneonta is the beneficiary of more than $6,700 worth of nonperishable food items, donated during the last two weeks of college and collected in bins at Mills Marketplace, the grocery and convenience store on campus. On May 20, the items were delivered to The Lord's Table, which is on Elm Street and operated by St. James Episcopal Church.

Joanna Foti, a field marketing specialist for Sodexo at SUNY Oneonta, said most of the donated food was purchased by students using leftover "Dining Dollars," which can be carried over from the fall to spring semester but not from spring to the next school year.

"When they have leftover unused Dining Dollars, many students either stock up for themselves and their families or donate it," Foti said. "We collect food donations at the end of every semester, but we have never received anything close to what we did this year. We were all in shock and so excited to share the amount. Our students were very generous to our community."

Foti said students donated about $2,000 worth of food to St. Mary's Food Pantry in Oneonta last semester. The effort is part of Sodexo's Stop Hunger initiative, which seeks to help alleviate hunger throughout the community using funds raised during various on-campus events, the release said.

According to Marcia Hoag, St. James' director of Feeding Ministries, the Lord's Table serves about 80 people a night, or 400 people a week. The accompanying food pantry, Loaves, and Fishes, serves 1,500 people a month. SUNY Oneonta's donation has saved the organization "literally thousands of dollars," according to Hoag.

"It was amazing and overwhelming — there was just so much food," Hoag said. "We thought they were coming in a pickup truck, and they showed up with a commercial truck. We gave some of it to other food pantries in Laurens, Edmeston and Richfield Springs. This donation will last us six months or more, and we're just so grateful."