Student Food and Housing Insecurity

For Food or Housing Assistance:

One student who has struggled to afford meals framed the issue like this: “As you can imagine, coming to class hungry can be a huge distraction – even a deterrent.”

Through the Charleston YOUth Count, a large-survey (2,200 responses), the College’s Riley Center estimates that 30% of
College of Charleston are housing insecure and 30% are also food insecure (half of these, or 15%, of the total are very food insecure).
In real numbers, this translates to approximately 3,400 students who are housing insecure and 1,700 who are very food insecure.

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Current Programs

cp4     cp3

Donate

Cougar Pantry takes almost all non-perishable donations and loves stocking up on toiletries and other random unused, unopened, individually packaged items. Volunteer shifts are a great way to get service hours for internships, classes, or the community. If you are interested in volunteering, please fill out this form or contact us (cougarpantry@cofc.edu).

1. Cougar Pantry
  • Location: Cougar Pantry is in the Stern Student Center, 2nd floor
  • For access please go to the Stern 1st floor front desk, and ask for access to the Pantry. Or, pop up and see if the door's open!

2. Swipe Away Hunger CofC’s Student Alumni Associates (SAA) host a one-week “Swipe Away Student Hunger” campaign at the end of each semester to collect meal swipes and Dining Dollars from students in order to provide short-term meal plans for students facing food insecurity. At the end of fall semester, students with meal plans donate meal swipes in addition to any amount of unused “Dining Dollars” left in their account to the campaign. In the spring semester, they may donate only unused “Dining Dollars” because meal swipes cannot carry over from fiscal year to next fiscal year. 
See: http://www.swipehunger.org/

3. Food Assistance

4. Temporary Housing Assistance 5. Other Resources Community Resource Guide