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������ɫ’s Empire State Service Corps students and the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) answered the call from Governor Kathy Hochul and prepared over 500 meal kits to benefit the campus and local community. Many New Yorkers are at risk of losing their SNAP benefits and other food assistance program benefits as a result of the government shutdown. Governor Hochul urged all members of the Empire State Corps and all New Yorkers to participate in a Day of Hunger Action on November 7 to combat food insecurity.

Anna Petramale, a second-year integrative neuroscience student at Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, was one of many students present to help prepare these kits and give back to the community.

“I’m an Empire State Service Corps member, so I found out about this through my program, and I thought it was a great opportunity to give back to my community, because I know that they’re cutting the food stamps right now,” she said.
“And so I really wanted to help out with that and I felt like I wanted to give back to the community because I want to be there for people.”

The Empire State Service Corps is New York State’s largest AmeriCorps program. Through the program, 500 students from 45 SUNY campuses throughout New York State dedicate at least 300 hours in paid community service, meet regularly to share and learn from each other’s experiences and work in several areas, including Food Insecurity and SNAP Basic Needs, to support their local communities.

“People are really excited about this, and they’ve gathered from all over to do this,” said Ivy Poitras, Statewide Program Coordinator in SUNY Systems Office of the Chancellor. “And ������ɫ, they have a wonderful Corps. Across the state we have really a three-pronged approach to what we’re doing for the SNAP crisis. We’ve been called upon by the governor, and that’s really important to us, you know, this was her program that she launched with our Chancellor.”

������ɫ students and volunteers came together to prepare these meal kits. Throughout the week, staff members at CCE would visit various stores to purchase all the food needed for the meal kits. At the event, students and volunteers were then tasked with organizing the food into brown bags labeled with specific recipes. Once organized, the meal kits were placed onto carts, which will be taken to the campus food pantry and the Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse (CHOW).

“This was a huge team effort,” said Alison Twang, Director at the Center for Civic Engagement. “One of our staff members had seen a creator, Dollar Tree Dinners, who had put out this idea to do these, like, meal kits. So that’s what gave us the initial idea to do them this way, and the recipe actually came from that creator. And then we’ll be working with CHOW to get all the items to their warehouse, and then they’ll distribute them to the pantries from there.”

In addition to the kits, various organizations will all be kicking off a food drive this week.

To get involved with the Empire State Service Corps, please visit the group’s . And to get involved on campus, please visit the Center for Civic Engagement’s website for more information.