Mellon Foundation awards CUNY Foundation grant to launch Campaign for a Food Secure CUNY

Jan. 22, 2021
A fruit vendor sells to a customer

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to the City University of New York to support and strengthen food security activities on CUNY campuses. The two-year grant will launch the Campaign for a Food Secure CUNY (CFS CUNY), a joint initiative of Healthy CUNY and the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute to respond to the increase in hunger and food insecurity resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are so grateful to the Mellon Foundation for this award that will enable us to respond to the doubling of food insecurity among CUNY students as a result of the pandemic,” said Nicholas Freudenberg, the principal investigator for this award, Distinguished Professor of Public Health at CUNY SPH, and the Director of Healthy CUNY and the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute. “By creating a sustainable system that links the many CUNY, public, and private activities seeking to reduce food insecurity among our students, we hope to contribute to a sustainable infrastructure that can move towards ending hunger among our students.”

“Our mission is to promote and sustain healthier populations in New York City and around the world,” said Ayman El-Mohandes, Dean of CUNY SPH. “That must start here at home with our students in our city. Through this initiative, our school fulfills its public health commitment to serve as a resource for the well-being of CUNY’s 275,000 students and their families. We couldn’t be more pleased by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s shared commitment to fighting hunger, building food security, and supporting CUNY students.”

Preventing an epidemic of hunger
The Campaign for a Food Secure CUNY will combat hunger and food insecurity through an array of activities that are focused on students and centered on the campuses with populations most affected by the pandemic. By harnessing and reinforcing existing programs, CFS CUNY will make substantial headway in meeting the needs of CUNY students.

Included in the campaign will be a sponsored drive to enroll CUNY students in SNAP, the national food stamp program that enables eligible students to obtain food in grocery stores and supermarkets. Additionally, CFS CUNY will assist the 18 CUNY food pantries to broaden their services to become hubs for connecting students to resources that promote food security and link CUNY students and their families to new city and state pandemic-related food programs. To strengthen awareness and access to these programs, the campaign will train CUNY students from around the university to serve as food security advocates, assist food pantries to reach more students with a wider array of services, and help faculty and staff to connect food insecure students to campus and community-based help.

Healthy CUNY is a university-wide effort to promote the health of CUNY students to support their academic and life success and address student health issues that can undermine academic success, including problems related to mental health, heath care access and reproductive and sexual health care. The CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute contributes evidence and supports action to resolve urban food problems. The Mellon award for the Campaign will be administered by the CUNY SPH Foundation, which supports community service, teaching and student support activities at the school.

“This landmark contribution will help students achieve food security in the face of the city’s worst public health crisis in a century and empower us to fulfill our mission by serving our students, CUNY at large, and wider New York City community,” said Adam Doyno, executive director of the Foundation.

“As New York’s public school of public health, we have an obligation to support CUNY and its students,” said Lyndon Haviland, Chairman of the CUNY SPH Foundation Board of Directors. “CUNY is the greatest engine powering upward mobility. If CUNY students go hungry, that cascades into numerous other problems that affect their ability to learn and thereby their ability to excel. We stand with CUNY students. The Campaign for a Food Secure CUNY comes at the most needed time to support the health and wellbeing of students facing hunger or food insecurity.”

About CUNY SPH
The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) is committed to teaching, research, and service that creates a healthier New York City and helps promote equitable, efficient, and evidence-based solutions to pressing health problems facing cities around the world. Located in Harlem, CUNY SPH is the top-ranked public school of public health in New York City, New York State, and the tristate region.

About the CUNY SPH Foundation
The CUNY SPH Foundation seeks to advance the achievement of CUNY SPH’s mission, vision, and values as New York City’s public school of public health through fundraising, building strategic partnerships, and providing services as a champion, both for students as they embark on public health careers and for faculty as they work to educate the next generation of public health professionals.

For more information, contact:
Barbara Aaron
barbara.aaron@sph.cuny.edu

 

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