It’s a profession for which her own life experience has prepared her. When Argueta was 3, she emigrated from El Salvador with her family, settling in East Hartford. In Argueta’s first year of college, a car accident left her mother unable to work for a year, forcing the young college student to divide her time between her studies and hospital visits. “Me and my brother had to provide a little bit more for our family,” Argueta said.

With grocery money limited, Argueta explored local resources and discovered that Goodwin University had a food pantry on campus. Now, the college student, who will earn a degree in human services this December, works there part-time and continues to supplement her grocery needs from its shelves weekly.

“I love it,” Argueta said. “They provide you with goods: cold and frozen foods, fresh fruit and vegetables.”

While Argueta’s maturity in addressing her experience with food insecurity may be unusual for a college student, the problem among this demographic is not. Recent surveys report that at least one in three college students nationwide faces food insecurity, according to Swipe Out Hunger, a national advocacy nonprofit. Yet, alarming as these statistics seem, experts suggest they may be conservative, especially since the pandemic when many college students like Argueta lost part-time jobs or funding sources from families that helped keep them financially solvent.

As awareness of food insecurity among college students is increasing, so are efforts to combat the problem. About a decade ago, just 88 of the nation’s college campuses offered an on-campus food pantry; today, that number has reached at least 700, according to a recent report by the College and University Food Bank Alliance, which has since merged with Swipe Out Hunger. A glimpse of how some local colleges are addressing the problem suggests that no two share the same approach to food insecurity.

Efforts To Better Accommodate Students

Some area colleges are tweaking their approach to addressing food insecurity to accommodate students better. One such example can be found at East Hartford’s Goodwin University, where about half of the estimated 3,000 students identify as persons of color and many are of non-traditional college age with families of their own—factors that increase college students’ risk of food insecurity, according to The #RealCollegeSurvey, the nation’s largest annual assessment of basic needs security among college students.

Melanie Stengel Photo.

Nachalie Santos looks on as Argueta helps her select perishable items from the food pantry refrigerator. Clients order non-perishables online. When they arrive they may also select from the refrigerated and frozen foods available.

And yet, when Goodwin University opened a food pantry on campus, only about seven students and their families took advantage of it. Housed in a low-traffic area and operating outside of any specific division, the pantry remained a relatively unknown and under-supported entity on campus. Then the pandemic struck.

“We found, especially during the pandemic, there was such a diverse need,” said Isamar Rodriguez, Goodwin’s community and educational service learning coordinator. That’s when the university began to look to address food insecurity differently. With a modest budget, strategic partnerships, including with Connecticut Foodshare and local grocery stores, and donations from internal supporters, the pantry in the past year has transitioned into the Ann B. Clark Community Co-op and was brought under the umbrella of the student affairs division of the university.

Now the co-op is meeting the food needs of an estimated 120 students and their families, whose average household size is three, according to Rodriguez. Students, faculty and staff are welcome at the co-op, where offerings extend beyond those typically associated with traditional food pantries, like canned goods. When available, Goodwin’s co-op offers dairy-free, peanut- and nut-free, and vegetarian options, fresh produce, meats, and fish. Food items are ranked nutritionally using a Supporting Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) model from the Institute for Hunger Research & Solutions at Connecticut Foodshare.

The food isn’t the only inviting aspect of the co-op. “We make it feel so welcoming here,” Argueta said. “We don’t ask people for their income or anything. You just grab what you need and go about your day.”

Determining Need

Similar to Goodwin University, the University of Connecticut’s Storrs campus works to assist students experiencing food insecurity through its dean of students office within its division of student affairs. Otherwise, the two colleges’ strategies differ greatly.

Unlike Goodwin, UConn’s main campus has no food pantry on campus. Its website lists contact information for area food pantries at the bottom of the dean of students section. Additionally, “UConn Faith,” listed under the student affairs section of the school’s website, contains a more robust listing of resources such as food banks and food pantries in the greater Connecticut community. But students who are experiencing food insecurity may not think to look for assistance via the search term “faith.”

Although UConn’s Storrs campus does not have an on-site food pantry, it’s one of four Connecticut colleges (along with Manchester Community College, Tunxis Community College and the University of New Haven) that partners with Swipe Out Hunger, which works with colleges nationwide to assist in the design and implementation of anti-hunger programs. Maureen Armstrong, associate dean of students at UConn, emphasizes that the school takes what she calls a holistic approach to challenges students face, which may include food insecurity.

Melanie Stengel Photo.

Argueta fills a cart with foods ordered by a pantry participant.

Before students are provided access to the school’s food assistance program, they must first engage individually with an assistant dean in a broad conversation about issues impacting their lives—which may include academic, financial, or other personal struggles. Students who cite food insecurity can complete a needs assessment to determine if they qualify for the UConn Swipe program. Qualifying students receive, free of charge, a block of 25 meals on a university-issued card to use in any of the UConn dining halls.

During the 2021-22 academic year, nearly 3,000 students on the main campus (whose total undergraduate population is approximately 18,500) sought support from UConn’s dean of students office for various reasons not necessarily related to food insecurity. Among these, just 31 meal blocks were awarded to students.

A separate campus-wide initiative to combat food insecurity has reached far more students. The university’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) last year launched Husky Market, which uses funds from university-issued student fees to purchase gift cards that students who self-identify as food insecure can use to buy food at three participating grocery stores: Price Chopper, Stop & Shop and Big Y. This year, says Peter Spinelli, vice president of the USG, the initiative has $482,000 that will provide a little more than 1,600 cards.

Spinelli said that this year, the program received more applications than they have cards to award. And yet, the gift card model of combating food insecurity is likely to be in its final year at UConn. The USG was able to launch the initiative during the pandemic because the university administration loosened financial restrictions regarding how student fees could be used.

As the USG grapples with the end of the successful program that, Spinelli notes, allows students in need to remain anonymous and avoid the stigma associated with food insecurity, he says the student organization will continue trying to meet the basic needs of their classmates.

Overcoming Stigma

The stigma around food insecurity is proven to prevent students in need from seeking or accepting assistance. Such stigma is well-documented, most recently in a 2021 survey of college students experiencing food insecurity. Many reported not using available food pantries because they didn’t want people to find out about it.

Swipe Out Hunger’s executive director Jaime Hansen acknowledges stigma as a significant obstacle to overcoming food insecurity and says it factors into how the organization trains partnering colleges. “When folks come to us and are putting together their intake process, we encourage a low barrier process,” she said.

The Goodwin University’s co-op staff say they operate with this perspective in mind. “It’s hard for people to ask for help,” Rodriguez said. “We try to destigmatize it.”

The 364,040 people in Connecticut who face hunger—one in every 10 residents—are increasingly likely to find these and other grocery store-like features at their local food pantries.

Throughout the state, more appealing ways to address food insecurity—a plight characterized by insufficient access to nutritious food on a regular basis—are replacing the former stereotypical food pantries housed in dark, closet-sized spaces in out-of-the-way places frequently lined with cans of otherwise unwanted food and opened irregularly depending on the availability of volunteers.

“We’re trying to put some humanity behind the numbers and to recognize that every one of those numbers is an individual and is having a tough time,” said Katie Martin, former executive director for Foodshare Institute for Hunger Research & Solutions, a resource for food banks and community partners.

For many Connecticut residents, facing the pandemic without steady employment or the availability of free or reduced school meals meant crossing the threshold into food insecurity. Compared to 2018, 2020 food insecurity levels were elevated in every county in Connecticut–from 12.8% of the population in Tolland to 16.2% in New Haven to 17% in New London, according to a report by the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research. But even during the darkest days of the pandemic, new and more effective ways of responding to food insecurity were taking hold across the state.

Innovations

Julieth Callejas, interim executive director, End Hunger Connecticut!

“During COVID, working-class residents were one or two checks away from becoming food insecure,” said Julieth Callejas, interim executive director of End Hunger Connecticut! (EHC!), a statewide organization. Callejas says she and her professional peers discovered that food pantries weren’t being utilized as efficiently as they could be. So EHC! stepped up, working harder and smarter to meet the growing demand in various ways.

During spring 2021, in conjunction with local food pantries, EHC! launched the Full Shelf Initiative, establishing a buying group to secure pricing contracts for the estimated 30% of food needs not covered by the existing food bank or donation process. “It’s food pantries helping pantries by networking and buying in bulk for reduced prices,” Callejas said. “There are about 800 pantries across Connecticut. We’ve connected to over 200 of them.”

In June, with funding from the American Rescue Plan, EHC! entered into a new partnership with the Connecticut Department of Agriculture that expanded its CT Fresh Match program, which allows Connecticut farmers market outlets to double customer purchases made via Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. As of June, 28 Connecticut farmers markets, farm stands, and mobile markets were participating in CT Fresh Match, many within reach of residents who need help most. In Bridgeport, for instance, seven farmers markets that are part of the community’s Farmers Market Collaborative are in neighborhoods deemed “nutritionally insecure.”

Increasingly, meeting residents where they are is a concept that extends beyond neighborhoods.

Meeting People Where They Are

In May, Hartford Hospital held a ribbon-cutting for its Food as Medicine center. Intended to look like a grocery store, the center offers patients access to healthy food items, free of charge, prescribed by their care providers.

Dr. Jessica Hsieh Mullins, director of gynecology at Hartford Hospital, said that in November 2019, the hospital began screening prenatal patients for food insecurity. Initially, about 25% were determined to be food insecure.

“As the pandemic progressed, the percentages increased,” Mullins said. “Now we’re at 50 percent.”

Mullins says food insecurity correlates with inappropriate weight gain during pregnancy, a risk factor for gestational diabetes and other complications that can adversely affect maternal health outcomes.

Cloe Poisson Photo.

TEEG uses a client-centered approach at their food pantry called SWAP (Supporting Wellness at Pantries) to address food insecurity. They categorize food on shelves according to its nutritional value to help clients make healthy choices. The most healthy choices are on the top shelf.

As part of a pilot program involving 20 patients, participants who screen as food insecure have weekly access to the hospital-based food pantry and 1-on-1 counseling with an onsite nutritionist. The department saw a 50% reduction in inappropriate weight gain among participants who received nutritional counseling, and that was before the availability of the onsite food pantry that offers healthy food choices.

“It’s really encouraging,” said Mullins, who adds that they hope to eventually offer this service to all patients who qualify for it.

A Dignified Approach

This client-centered approach to addressing food insecurity is gaining considerable traction throughout the state. Martin said that Connecticut Foodshare surveyed state residents last year. “A lot of people say they don’t want to rely on others for help. They would feel embarrassed to ask,” she said. Foodshare workers use this information as they develop ways to make the process more dignified and share these strategies with their network, which includes multiple partner sites throughout Greater Hartford.

Cloe Poisson Photo.

Chelsea French, TEEG’s community program manager, stocks shelves. Carl Asikainen, food systems coordinator, and volunteer Mike Kingman, help sort the food delivery.

Promoting client choice is at the heart of this strategy. Rather than prebagged food, an increasing number of food pantries are offering options on shelves that resemble those in a grocery store, said Martin, who launched a new consulting organization, More than Food Consulting, LLC in August.

How the shelves are organized is critical. Using a research-based tactic called SWAP (Supporting Wellness at Pantries), food is ranked nutritionally based on saturated fat, sodium and sugar and is readily marked with red, yellow and green labels. Martin said that grading food on its health value is just part of the process.  “We’re also putting more energy into asking people for their cultural food preferences,” she said.

All these efforts are making the process more “transformational rather than transactional,” Martin said. She points to TEEG (Thompson Ecumenical Empowerment Group, Inc.), a nonprofit social service agency in North Grosvenordale, as having embraced this model.

The nonprofit offers services for families in need, including a diaper bank and fuel and energy assistance. TEEG Executive Director Anne Miller says staff members look for opportunities to support clients in as many ways as possible. “When the community market is open, we have a case manager greeting people, signing them in,” she said. “They might say, ‘I know you have three children; would you be interested in our youth programs?’”

The three TEEG-operated community markets that Miller references used to be called food pantries. She says the newer versions, which apply the SWAP method of categorizing food, consistently offer frozen meat, fresh produce, milk and other dairy products. TEEG also makes home deliveries to clients who can’t get to the market.

Miller sees the food program as a way to reduce food insecurity and establish a trusting connection with community members who could benefit from assistance in other ways. “We are the conduit, the pipeline,” Miller said. “It used to be neighbor to neighbor. We don’t know our neighbors anymore.”

About 13% of Connecticut residents said they did not have enough money to pay for food at least once in the previous year, according to the most recent Community Wellbeing Survey conducted by DataHaven in 2018.

Black and Hispanic residents were more likely to struggle, with 23% and 28%, respectively, reporting food insecurity. In several cities, about a quarter of all residents struggle to pay for food.

Urban residents are also less likely to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, according to the survey. Statewide, about 72% said they had excellent or good access to produce, while the rates were only 56% in New Haven and 51% in Hartford and Bridgeport.

Studies have linked food insecurity to higher rates of obesity, heart disease and diabetes—as well as higher health care costs.

“There’s endless amounts of data that says exercise and vegetables make you healthy,” said Jacqueline Maisonpierre, the former co-executive director for the newly merged New Haven Land Trust and New Haven Farms. Maisonpierre left the organization in mid-February.

Melanie Stengel Photo.

Eunice Castelan Castelan keeps her eye on the instructor a during an exercise and nutrition class at the Martinez school in New Haven. In the back are Georgina Castelan and Juana Rodriguez.

The group is one of several around the state seeking to connect lower-income residents with produce from urban farms. The group’s Farm-Based Wellness Program uses a diabetes prevention curriculum from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Participants learn to prepare healthy meals with fruits and vegetables during an intensive 20-week summer program that continues monthly through the winter.

About 96% of families reported improvements in their eating habits, with an average weight loss of 4.29 pounds, and an average increase in exercise of 64 minutes per week, according to the 2019 evaluation report.

“For those that it works for, it really works,” Maisonpierre said. “We’ve had a lot of folks who have had a really significant turnaround in their health.”

Bill Flynn is one. When he joined the Farm-Based Wellness Program in July 2018, he weighed 360 pounds.

“I knew [my weight] was an issue for 10 years,” Flynn said. “It got to a point where I was a size 50 pants. I couldn’t put on my shoes, and I had congestive heart failure.”

By January 2020, he was down to 240 pounds. Now Flynn volunteers to help others in the program, even cooking meals for the winter meetings.

“I can’t say enough about how much this program has done for me,” Flynn said.

Ruth Torres joined the Farm-Based Wellness Program in 2012 when her 18-year-old grandson was diagnosed with pre-diabetes.

“It helped him a lot,” Torres said. “Before a year was up, he had lost 70 pounds.”

Torres stayed involved because she saw her health problems, including arthritis, improve through the program. She later became a Community Health Ambassador and is now the program coordinator. She regularly grows her own fruits and vegetables—something she never imagined doing.

“The program has taught me that food can be used as a medicine,” Torres said.

Cristina Sandolo, the executive director of Green Village Initiative, said groups operating urban farms and community gardens contribute to better health in several ways: They increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables. They educate children and teens about healthy eating. And they help residents make money through urban farming.

Melanie Stengel Photo.

Juan Ortiz (L) gets some help from exercise instructor, Amanda Mia (C) during an exercise and nutrition class at Martinez school. At right is Soyla Aguilar.

“We are providing access to 150 families in Bridgeport who can now grow their food for their dinner tables,” Sandolo said. “We hear that the bulk of their vegetables during the growing season come from their plots.”

In Hartford, a mobile farmers market brings fresh produce into food desert neighborhoods. In Stamford, cooking classes help cancer patients use nutritious food as part of their healing plan. At Naugatuck Valley food pantries, a nutritionist is available to help provide recipes for the fruits and vegetables it distributes. In some cities, FoodCorps members are embedded in public elementary schools.

Still, programs to help those in need often go underused. For example, the federal Farmers Market Nutrition Program gives books of checks to mothers, children and senior citizens to buy produce at participating farmers markets. Each year, WIC participants receive $15 books, and senior citizens receive $18 books.

After federal money is distributed, the state offers a second round of checks with its own funding. Yet, the state money often sits untouched, according to  Jaime Smith, who manages the program for the Department of Agriculture. Only 36% of state funding for WIC participants and 77% of state funding for senior citizens, was used in a recent year.

“That’s a lot of money on the table that could be used to feed people and generate income to the farmers,” Smith said.

Some are unaware of the program, but others can’t find transportation to get back for the second distribution, Smith said. It’s just one example of the layers that contribute to food insecurity.

“We believe that urban agriculture is one part of a much larger puzzle,” Sandolo said. “The food system is complex, poverty is complex, and the systems that prohibit folks from living the lives they would like to live are complex.”

Jodie Mozdzer Gil Photo.

Bill Flynn joined the Farm-Based Wellness Program in 2018 and now volunteers to help others and even cooking meals to serve during wellness events.

Martha Page, the executive director of Hartford Food System, says helping people become self-sufficient is a first step. She noted that a decrease in food insecurity in Hartford, from 33% in 2015 to 23% in 2018 according to the Community Wellbeing Survey, followed decreased unemployment in the city over the same period.

“At the end of the day, the best thing that can be done for most people from a health perspective as it relates to food, is they have to be able to afford the food that will make them healthy,” Page said.

She has hope despite data showing continued lack of access in cities.

“You have a right to access healthy food in your neighborhood or within easy reach,” Page said. “More people are thinking about it, and more people are arriving at the notion of food justice and food democracy. That was not a concept that we even talked about when I started this job. More people know what it means when your community is a food desert. I think that’s progress.”

In Connecticut, 440,000 people are food insecure, which means they have limited or uncertain access to sufficient nutritious food, according to 2017 U.S. Department of Agriculture figures, the latest available. They comprise 12.2 percent of the state’s population.People with food insecurity are 25 percent more likely to have heart disease and diabetes, and 50 percent more likely to have kidney disease, cites Feeding America, a national food bank network.

“These issues can be prevented or managed better with a proper diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and whole grains,” said Michelle Lapine McCabe, director of the Center for Food Equity and Economic Development, based in Bridgeport.

Carl Jordan Castro Photo.

Khadijah Muhammad, 41, food pantry coordinator, Thomas Merton Center, Bridgeport, checks the products available.

But, she said, “food most often available to this population is typically the opposite of healthy—high-sodium and high-sugar canned goods, refined grains and processed meats. Food pantries have the potential of making health-supportive foods readily available to a population that needs it most.”

The state’s two food banks are leading efforts to provide pantries with nutritious food and to promote the link between food and health.

Connecticut Food Bank provides about 55 percent and Foodshare about 75 percent of the food their member pantries get statewide. In a Feeding America rating of 200 food banks, Connecticut Food Bank is ranked 19th and Foodshare 23rd in terms of nutritional foods they distribute. Pantries also get donated food from grocery stores, food producers, individual donors and food drives, and they purchase food as well.

An estimated 125,000 people use the state’s 357 food pantries. In addition, the food banks bring mobile pantries to some 114 sites.

A recent survey of a sample of food pantries conducted by the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that food quality was “mid-range, not as bad as we suspected, but there’s certainly room for improvement,” said Kristen Cooksey Stowers, a postdoctoral fellow at Rudd. Pantry directors in Bridgeport, Cheshire and Hartford said that space limitations and lack of refrigeration are barriers to change and expressed concern that if they only relied on fresh food, they wouldn’t have enough inventory, Stowers said.

Food pantry clients, Stowers said, expressed interest in having more nutritious choices to improve their health.

While improvements at pantries are ongoing, a total conversion to mostly healthy food “will take years,” said Katie Martin, vice president and chief strategy officer of Foodshare, the food bank for Hartford and Tolland counties.

People facing hunger were “the receptacles of whatever food the rest of us didn’t want,” said McCabe, whose agency is part of the Greater Bridgeport Council of Churches. “The quality of food was making them sick,” she said.

Stacy Downer of New Haven relied on pantries as her source for food after her employer went out of business and she lost her job. She found ones with fresh produce, chicken and meat, and ate healthier. She lost 60 pounds and her blood pressure has improved. Now that she no longer has to choose between buying food and paying her bills, she spreads the word about pantries, often taking friends and family with her. “You have to tell people, you can’t be ashamed to go to pantries,” she said.

Khadijah Muhammad of Bridgeport shopped at food pantries to feed her family of three children as she balanced day-care jobs and attending college. She often found long lines, shortages of food and poor-quality frozen foods.

Now, Muhammad is a food pantry coordinator at the Thomas Merton Center in Bridgeport, which fosters healthy eating and prominently displays nutritional food. She finds that clients minimize their needs because they are ashamed. “I tell people, you don’t want to get down to zero food. What kind of life is that? People think they have to have nothing to get help,” she said.

“When you don’t have the money to buy what you need, it takes your energy and your life away from you,” Muhammad said.

Pantries and health care clinics and hospitals have also formed partnerships to educate people about the importance of healthy eating and provide food and other services.

At some pantries, health care screenings take place and appointments for check-ups with a doctor are made for clients.

Fair Haven Community Health Care  in New Haven co-sponsors monthly visits of the CT Food Bank mobile food pantry. In December, 95 people attended; in January, 210; and in February, 187.

Dr. Mellisa Pensa, Fair Haven’s clinical lead for health equity, said 30 percent of their patients are food insecure, 20 percent have diabetes—compared to a national average of 9 percent—and 25 percent are uninsured. “For us to provide them with a basic need is really important” for their health, Pensa said. Since center staff volunteer at the pantry, patients “see our faces. It’s familiar. They are comfortable going there,” she said.

A mobile food pantry recently started operating at Americares Health Clinic in Bridgeport, and Bridgeport Hospital is also planning to host one. The first hospital-based food pantry in the country opened in 1976 at Mt. Sinai hospital in Hartford, part of St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center.  It serves 1,600 families.

Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London has given $50,000 to Fresh New London to enhance food access for food insecure people, including planting gardens where food will be available for anyone to pick, said Laurel Holmes, director of community partnerships and population health.

Carl Jordan Castro Photo.

People in line select food brought to Fair Haven by the CT Food Bank mobile pantry.

Hospitals are also screening their patients for food insecurity. Anne Diamond, president and CEO of Day Kimball Healthcare and Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam, said that clinicians discovered that a 74-year-old patient had been skipping meals and medical appointments because she didn’t have money or transportation. The hospital helped her get benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.

Food pantries vary, ranging from rooms with canned goods to grocery-store settings with shopping carts and nutritional choices. Allotted food amounts are often based on family size. Some pantries are open only to residents who live in zip codes served by the organization.

Martin, of Foodshare, invented a food-rating system called SWAP (Supporting Wellness At Pantries), which is being adopted by both food banks and is used in about 20 pantries in Connecticut and others out of state. It categorizes food based on nutritional value and assigns it a traffic light color: green for the healthiest; yellow for moderate healthiness; and red for unhealthy. The goal is to help food pantries select and display nutritional foods, indicate whether they are appropriate for certain medical conditions, and guide clients to choose healthy foods.

“The attitude in this field has changed dramatically,” said McCabe. But, she added, “a lot of work needs to be done.”

You can find a list of Connecticut Food pantries here.

The most recent data from Feeding America shows that in 2016, 11.6 percent of the total Connecticut population was living with food insecurity, and of that percentage, 15.6 percent were children.

According to the parameters set at the World Food Summit in 1996, “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

While food security may be something most Connecticut residents take for granted, a significant portion of the Connecticut population wonders every day where their next meal will come from.

Sabine Joseph

The impact of this issue is especially concerning when considering how it is affecting children. The 2018 report on Child Food Insecurity by Feeding America states that struggling with food insecurity puts children at a greater risk for “stunted development, anemia and asthma, oral health problems and hospitalization.”

The negative effects even affect academics. The same report states that food insecure children may begin “falling behind their food-secure peers both academically and socially.” It also states that food insecurity is “linked to lower reading and mathematics test scores, and [food insecure children] may be more likely to exhibit behavioral problems, including hyperactivity, aggression and anxiety.”

Though the total population in Connecticut living with food insecurity has come down from 13.1 percent since 2014, food insecurity is still a prevalent issue across the state, especially in urban areas, Feeding America reports. East Hartford, Waterbury, Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford are some of the most food insecure areas in Connecticut, according to a joint study done in 2012 by the Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy at the University of Connecticut and UConn’s Cooperative Extension System.

However, the same study shows that these locations also have a high ranking in terms of food availability. East Hartford, Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, and Waterbury are all top ten in the state for food accessibility, ranking at 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th respectively. “Food access is certainly an important factor in whether or not families can obtain food,” said Marcia Pessolano of the state Department of Public Health’s Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity Program.

Sabine takes a portrait of Casmir Ebubedike as Mark Mirko, photographer, coaches.

“However, food insecurity often reflects a lack of available financial resources for food within the household. Food insecurity is complex; poverty and food insecurity in the United States are closely related, but are not mutually exclusive. Unemployment and underemployment, lack of affordable housing, high medical costs and other competing financial priorities may leave families to choose between purchasing food and paying for other essential needs.”

Shannon Yearwood, the executive director of End Hunger Connecticut!, said that a lack of time to apply for assistance could also be one of reasons why food insecure people may not be able to access the resources they need. Another reason she cites is the stigma surrounding food insecurity that she says has grown recently, as well as the possibility that the state’s immigrant population may be fearful of seeking assistance.

End Hunger is advocating and working with legislators and schools to provide Connecticut children with the resources they need to become more food secure.

According to the End Hunger Nutrition and Food Insecurity Profile from 2015, many students are taking advantage of the meal programs available to them. The data shows that a combined 115,518 children were taking advantage of the School Breakfast Program and Summer Meal Programs in addition to showing an 88.2 percent increase in participation in the At-Risk Afterschool Meals/Supper Program.

Through programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, the Women, Infants, and Children Program and the Child Nutrition Programs, DPH and organizations like End Hunger are working to lessen the severity of the issue of food insecurity in the state.

Yearwood said the most important thing about the work is that “we don’t get discouraged and we help folks have not just food, but also hope.”

Sabine Joseph is a senior at the Miami Lakes Educational Center in Miami Lakes, Florida.