Pantry makes rescue delivery to Snow campus

By Suzanne Dean

Publisher

03-26-2020

EPHRAIM—Food shortages are being keenly felt for students at the Snow College campus in Ephraim. One mother visited her daughter in her dorm after face-to-face classes were cancelled. She posted a message on Facebook saying she encountered three students without food.

Operations director at the Sanpete Pantry in Mt. Pleasant, Julie Kummor took a call from a student who called and said, “We have no way to get to the pantry,” so Kummor decided to sponsor a special distribution at the college, according to David Potter, director of outreach at Sanpete Pantry.

As the food shortage unfolded last week, someone in the Salt Lake area heard about the student situation and sent the pantry a $1,000 check.

The food pantry panel truck pulled into the faculty parking lot east of Huntsman Library last Friday about 2 p.m. For over an hour, 20 students and faculty lined up behind a sign-up table, while individuals, married couples and roommate pairs stood apart by about 6 feet in line.

Volunteers inquired about income and situations, and most had no trouble qualifying as low-income. Most had student jobs, now cancelled, or no jobs at all. One student had already been laid off.

Two of the recipients were Miranda Nigro and her roommate Alexa Flores. Miranda actually graduated from Snow a couple of years ago, but is living with her mother. Flores, from Las Vegas, is still in school and living in the Nigro home.

“My mom works at Walmart,” Miranda said. “I’m helping out my mom because it’s hard (for her) to get groceries after work.”

“I’m just trying to see what I can do for the family,” Flores said.

A student family who came through the line included Nathon Anderson; his wife, Helen Bess; and their daughter Phoebe, 4. Nathon and Helen are from Michigan.

“He makes $400 a month working at Walmart, “but all that goes for school,” Anderson said.

Students could choose items from pallets of various types of food, such as peanut butter, cereal and canned goods. Each individual or family could get one roll of toilet paper.

“The run on Walmart with empty shelves has really hurt students and families,” Potter said. What the pantry really needs now most is cash to buy milk, diapers and toilet paper to go in packs that could be sent home with needy public school students to get families through the weekends. The packs are now being sent out to school lunch distribution sites.