Valerie Fennell, of Butler, sorts frozen fish, chicken and pork in a freezer within the Pioneer Pantry on Butler County Community College’s main campus in Butler Township on Wednesday, Jan. 17. Fennell volunteers at the pantry through AmeriCorps. Submitted photo

A Butler County Community College food security program for low-income students will be expanding its Pioneer Pantry to campuses in Cranberry Township and Armstrong, Jefferson and Lawrence counties.

The pantry, currently located only at the college’s main campus in Butler Township, will use a $20,000 grant to add a pantry presence at BC3 @ Cranberry, BC3 @ Armstrong, BC3 @ Brockway and BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing.

“Students are often food insecure,” said Josh Novak, coordinator of BC3’s food security team and the college’s dean of students. “They don’t always know where their next meal is coming from. They don’t always have a plan for how they are going to pay for their next meal. And that sometimes involves sacrifices to fill a gasoline tank and not necessarily eat quality food.”

The college will apply about $4,000 of the grant to refrigeration units that will accommodate delivered fresh, cold and frozen foods to those locations and $4,500 of the grant to funding an AmeriCorps volunteer to operate the Pioneer Pantry on BC3’s main campus 20 hours per week during the spring and fall semesters.

The college will also apply $4,500 to a new meal-voucher program for Pioneer Pantry participants to use in the Pioneer Cafe on BC3’s main campus; $4,000 for food purchases; $2,500 for marketing to create awareness and $500 for an internal staffing stipend, Novak said.

“Sustainability of a pantry for the long haul at BC3 is a core service to our students,” Novak said, “and (the grant) helps us to create the momentum to make sure that is happening everywhere we serve students.”

The Pennsylvania Department of Education’s designation 17 months ago of BC3 as a Hunger-Free Campus qualified the college to seek associated grants from the agency.

Grants are intended to help campuses address food insecurity with measures that include enhancing access to food options, creating awareness initiatives and upgrading facilities, according to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration.

Mikayla Moretti, a member of the college’s food security team and the BC3 Education Foundation’s director of events, said the Pioneer Pantry in 2019-2020 served 341 credit and noncredit students and their families, or employees and their families.

The Pioneer Pantry provides canned, boxed and bagged foods, fresh vegetables, dairy products, frozen meats, products to seal and preserve food and hygiene items for infants. The Pioneer Pantry served 838 in 2022-23.

“It’s challenging to see the numbers that high, that people have that need,” Novak said. “I think it also says a ton about what we’ve done to reduce stigma. The biggest barrier to students accessing the pantry is the cultural stigma of asking for help, needing help

The percentage of residents estimated to be in poverty in Armstrong, Butler, Jefferson and Lawrence counties, among sites of BC3 additional locations, ranges from 8.9 to 13.3%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges in 2022 reported nearly 50% of the state’s community college students come from families earning less than $30,000 a year and are considered to be of very low income.

“I think it is assumed that because we are in Cranberry Township that there are not those types of needs as prevalent as in other areas,” said Ryan Kociela, director of BC3 @ Cranberry. “But there really are.”

It is “incredibly difficult” for a student who has a basic need to focus and concentrate on higher-level academic work, Kociela said.

The Pioneer Pantry on BC3’s Butler Township campus was established in 2019 and followed a 2018 Wisconsin Lab Study survey in which 38% of 304 BC3 student respondents indicated they experienced low or very low food security.

It is open during the spring semester from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays through May 2 in Room 100 of the college’s arts and hospitality building.

Bill Foley, coordinator of news and media content at Butler County Community College, contributed to this report.