by Chloe Ortiz, staff writer
The Community Table, located in room A-312 at Cenntenial Campus, is open Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the spring semester. Students, faculty, and staff may access this free-food market at anytime during these hours. The only requirements to use the program are to present a valid college ID and sign into an iPad upon entering.
The location typically offers a variety of canned and boxed foods, fresh fruitsand produce, meats, fresh and frozen meals, bread, and beverages. The program began to offer additional products such as personal hygiene items and used clothing when Student Life tookover operations in May 2020.
The Table partners with local community program Care and Share to provide products tostudents and staff; donations may also be accepted by students, faculty, and staff at any point in time.
If interested in donating, Faculty and staff may give monetary donations by setting up an optional payroll deduction; otherwise, community donations to the college foundation support the program. The Table originally came from High-Impact Practices (HIPs) directors, Robin Schofield and Jo-Ellen Becco. Their collective interest in creating the program arose after seeing the initial response to the first Mobile Market in the Centennial Atrium in 2017.
Steve Grippo, Assistant to the Dean at PPSC, had the food pantry set up and operational in the Fall of2018. Steve says “the way The Community Table was set up was very unique in terms of college food pantries. It was designed to help reduce the stigma of food insecurity.” Before being transferred to Student Life, the program was averaging 220-230 non-duplicated visits per week,with around 10% of users being faculty and staff.
PPSC offers a similar resource at their Downtown and Rampart campuses called The Cupboards. Centennial Campus offers a Mobile Food Market every February, March, and April during the spring semester as well as in September, October, and November during fall semesters.
Dates and times for the Mobile Food Market are available under the resources tab at PikesPeak.edu.