On a recent Wednesday morning, a dozen staff and volunteer students broke down and organized three pallets of food in the Centennial Education quad. The line for the bimonthly on-campus food pantry was long and filled with over 100 students and some community members. Once the line started to move, Spanish language music started playing and people started dancing. Once at the front of the line, people filled bags, wagons and boxes with free food donated by the OC Food Bank.
“I appreciate anything small because food is expensive at the store,” said SCC student Dora Leon.
The Santa Ana College’s School of Continuing Education hosts a food distribution twice a month, on Wednesdays, from 10 a.m. to noon (or until supplies last). About 400 households are served monthly with frozen, refrigerated and dry goods including salmon, strawberries, pasta, milk, eggs, vegetables and canned foods.
Organized by the Student Basic Needs Program, the CEC food bank offers more variety and fewer limits on what students can take home than the Thrive Center at SAC’s main campus. CEC officials hope to increase frequency to three times a month and have recently partnered with Serve the People, which offers free mobile dental and vision services.
“We encourage [students] to bring a cart, especially when we work with the OC Food Bank because they provide much more food,” said SCE’s Student Services Coordinator Claudia Gutierrez. “The food banks provide a lot of good-quality food for students at SAC, SCC, and CEC.”
While most of the food at the Thrive Center is donated and purchased from Smart and Final across the street, the Centennial Food Distribution is provided by the OC Food Bank, is purchased directly from the supplier, and distributed by a government-funded program. TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) sources from wholesalers, manufacturers, and farmers. More food is often available when the OC Food Bank supplies it. When the food is being provided by Orange County’s only other Federally funded food bank, Second Harvest, through their college pantry program.
“If they are serving 100 people now, but they want to serve 1,000, we can provide food for 1,000,” said Mark Lowry, director of OC Food Bank.
Most people who use CEC’s food pantry are either students or local community members. Some have been coming for years, while others were just made aware of the food distribution and are taking advantage while grocery prices rise.
“I appreciate getting meat such as chicken because I can go home and prepare it for my kid,” Maria Melgoza said in Spanish through a translator.
Unlike the Thrive Center on campus, the Centennial Food Distribution allows each household to fill up one cart of food per event rather than just one basket or grocery bag per week. To receive food from either site, you must have a valid student ID number. Although the distribution officially opens at 10 a.m., students begin signing in and lining up as early as 8 a.m., and supplies typically last until about 11:30 a.m. The food distribution is available every semester, and the schedule, which includes dates and food providers, is available online.
- Centennial Food Distribution is open for SAC students - February 26, 2025
