From Two-Man Team to Essential Resource: A Conversation with The Food Pantry at Columbia's Michael Higgins
Michael Higgins, co-founder and chair of The Food Pantry At Columbia.
Since its opening in 2016, The Food Pantry at Columbia University has helped thousands of students facing food insecurity. In the short time since its inception, The Food Pantry has gone from being a two-person operation to having a nine-person board and three permanent locations. It has become an essential resource within the university. While many of the buildings and services on campus are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Food Pantry at Columbia continues to offer a variety of non-perishable food at no cost to students who need it, in addition to disbursements of produce in partnership with the Corbin Hill Food Project.
Below is a transcript of a thirty-minute conversation with the co-founder and chair of the Food Pantry, third-year G.S. student Michael Higgins. In this conversation, Michael discusses his work at The Food Pantry: the early stages of the project, the challenges and unexpected support he has found along the way, and the development and implementation of alternative ways to disburse food during this time of social distancing and building closures.
How did you come up with this idea? How did the idea of the food pantry start?
The General Studies Student Council gave those of us on the policy committee $1000 to give food to students in need and as we started to do that we realized that non-G.S. students were reaching out to us asking us for help. Myself and Raymond Curtis—as well as all of us in G.S.S.C.—were under the same kind of “Wow, this is…we weren’t expecting this.” Raymond and I decided to do something about it. We had the means, the opportunity, and the resources to do something about it. I, along with a handful of volunteers, continued on giving food to those who need it. Raymond did everything in his power to try to get us a permanent space within the university. That’s basically how it started, and it has exploded since then. We're to the point now where we’re serving from 100 to 250 people a week. It’s a huge undertaking but we’re so grateful to be a part of it.
Just to clarify, when you started reaching out to students, I can imagine you found a lot of different people with different needs. Were you set on the idea of a food pantry before reaching out to these people?
The pantry idea was something that formed organically. We didn’t set out saying, “Okay, this is what we’re going to do, we’re going to form a pantry.” The main premise was, “We need to ensure that our peers don’t have to go through this [food insecurity], so whoever needs food can get food.” From there, we focused on the sustainability aspect and the longevity aspect which gave us the notion that we needed to formalize it. We needed to make it more than just two people, we needed to do more than that. So I think the premise of the actual food pantry grew from the notion that we, as students, need to do everything in our power to make sure that other students don’t have to face the issues that they’re currently facing.
What was the biggest challenge you encountered when the project started?
Ironically, it was not the university. I say “ironically” because we weren’t expecting space for years, and they gave it to us in months. We weren’t expecting space in such a fast turnaround time. The university administration was basically on board from the very beginning. But the biggest concern—the biggest hurdle—was getting some people past the notion that “This is not my problem.”
Are you partnered with other student organizations?
There’s no formalized partnership with any student organization at this point. We have connections and affiliations with a lot of student groups within the university but no formalized partnerships. Once we got to the point where we felt like we needed to do more, the formalized partnerships were with individual schools and not the student groups. We have a formalized partnership with about six or seven schools within the University, some of which have given us multiple years and perpetual funding agreements. Some have given one-time agreements. Some have not given funding to date but may consider funding partnerships in the future.
What is your role in the Pantry at the moment?
My role now is as it has been since the beginning: I oversee the entire organization. I ensure that any initiative that needs to be done gets done, whether by the respective individual who oversees those initiatives or myself if it needs to be expedited. That’s primarily my role.
That whole first year it was just myself and Raymond. It was just the two of us and we were doing everything, but now we have a nine-person board, all of whom are students. The vast majority of them, eight out of nine, are unpaid. There’s only one paid role simply because that role is developed and paid for by a partnership with Barnard College. That role doesn’t have any more responsibility than any other pantry operation vice-chair, but that role is paid simply because the funding is there to pay it.
So my role is basically to oversee everything. I feel that besides the title, besides the role, besides the responsibility, I’m wholly thankful for being part of something that really is so much bigger than myself, something that’s so much bigger than just the school or the initiative. For example, the Food Pantry at Columbia has been designated an essential resource within the university. As you can imagine, the entire university has basically shut down. Classes are online now and everything is closed. But the Food Pantry at Columbia is still open. We are trying to do everything we can to make sure that those individuals who need food get food. Part of that is predicated on the fact that we are an essential resource and we will not be closed.
The food pantry’s Lerner Hall location.
You guys have been so creative in figuring out ways to still help people facing food insecurity. For example, a few of the locations that had just opened had to close, and then you moved to John Jay Hall. You guys are still working! Can you tell me a little bit about that?
You’re right. We do have three locations but unfortunately, all of them are temporarily closed because of the pandemic. However, we are going to get access back to the medical center location. We have access to it now but we are going to open up on Tuesday [April 21st]. The other two locations are still temporarily closed. We did move to JJ’s place over at John Jay Hall on March 26th and when we did that we also developed a new business model to help those individuals who cannot come, or choose not to come, to the physical pantry location. Now they can have their food delivered directly to them. We have the help of volunteers who are giving their time and their energy—and let’s be frank, who are putting themselves at risk—in order to ensure that those who need food get food. And that is something that we just developed as of this month. It only started about three weeks ago and, as of today, we have 82 unique individuals who have requested the food be delivered to them as part of the drop-off initiative. This is something that is going to continue throughout the summer and throughout the next academic year.
We are planning to incorporate a more streamlined, more efficient, and more help-focused business model. For now, we have the drop-off and the temporary location at John Jay. Our permanent locations will be back up as soon as campus reopens.
Where do you want to see the pantry in the future? In your wildest dreams, what does the pantry look like when things go back to normal?
I really can’t discuss the “wildest dream” aspect; however, what I’ll speak on is in relation to what I’d like to happen. What I’d like to happen is that we have a lot more space in Lerner Hall.
First off, we are the only student group that has permanent space within Lerner Hall. Second, we are getting more space within the university. Any university has limited resources and limited space to provide so that it’s going to be a huge undertaking on itself. I would like to be able to say we have more space because I think we have progressed beyond the state where we currently are located. But again, that’s something that’s still my hope. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but that’s my hope.
At this point it’s clear to the university, it’s clear to the schools within the university, and it’s clear to the student population that if we continue on the trajectory that we are, we are going to need more in the future. However, I think the timing now is so intense that us being able to get more space is not a priority as opposed to ensuring those who need food get food. Getting food to individuals who need it is paramount. While I know that we need more space, I also know that there’s a fine line that we need to dance in order to ensure that we balance the need of the pantry versus the need of the student population. Right now, the need of the student population is way more a priority than the need of the organization trying to help those individuals.
That makes a lot of sense. These are extraordinary circumstances and it’s hard to think about the future. We are living thinking no further than tomorrow.
Exactly. Exactly.
Now about the deliveries. I’m assuming they are happening around the Columbia area, right?
Yes. Well, we do it both ways. As you can imagine there are students who live within all five boroughs. So we have it set up in a couple of ways. The vast majority of our volunteers live within about a mile around campus so that’s where the bulk of all the deliveries happen, because it’s right there. However, there are recipients who live in the outer boroughs and the extremes of Manhattan. For those individuals we have some volunteers who have access to a vehicle. When they have availability, those who have vehicles can drop-off food to people in the outer boroughs and the extremes of Manhattan. So, for example, there are students who live in lower Manhattan, and others who live in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens. So having people with access to cars that can deliver food on a regular basis to recipients in the outer boroughs is priceless. When we get to a point where we have a 3 to 1, or a 5 to 1 ratio of recipients to volunteers, we’re going to start reaching out to third party organizations like Invisible Hands or things of that nature and ask them if they could partner with us so that their drivers can help us out with some of the deliveries.
Can you tell me a little more about that third party organization?
Sure. Invisible Hands would be like Postmates, on a smaller scale. You’d place your order and then they’d go pick it up and deliver it to you. We’ve already spoken to them and they’d be happy to help. It’s just a question of ensuring that we have enough demand for them to help us.
Just the logistics of this delivery system could be a whole hour conversation that I’d love to have another time. Right now I’d like to go back to the Pantry in general. My final question is: what can students do to help the pantry now and in the future?
We always, always need volunteers. On our website, there’s a section that points people to a confidentiality agreement. Anyone who has the time and the capacity to go there and get involved should fill out that confidentiality agreement. If you want to do something in relation to the disbursement drop off, you can go to our COVID-19 Update and Resources Page and click on the link to access our volunteer disbursement drop-off signup form. If you are not already a volunteer, you would need to sign a confidentiality agreement, and then sign up to be a part of the drop-off initiative. Volunteers can provide their information so we can pair them with a recipient. Those are the two biggest ways a person can help. If a person wants to donate non-perishable food there’s an option on our website where they can do that. Additionally, if someone wants to make a monetary donation, we have the ability to accept that as well.
This conversation took place on Friday, April 17th, four days before the reopening of the medical center location. Please follow these links if you would like to volunteer or donate. If you or anyone you know is facing food insecurity visit the Food Pantry at Columbia’s website for updates on location, hours of operation, and access to the Disbursement Request Drop-Off Form.
Glorimar Marquez is a staff writer at CPR and a Creative Writing major in the School of General Studies. She likes fiction books, non-fiction essays, NPR podcasts, and 90° weather.