With food options on campus becoming either scarce or expensive, LBCC must act in order to provide more reasonable and more effective food options for their students on campus.
Recently, the cafeteria in the E building on the LAC shutdown the college’s contract was “immediately” dissolved with S&B Foods, leaving students without an accessible means of getting a meal.
While vending machines from Farmer Fridge will be installed at LAC and PCC and provide meals for $8.99 – $9.99, surely the college can do better.
Past this, would these vending machines even hold enough food for how many students purchase their meals on campus?
The shelves of the Viking Express which hold the cold foods and more fulfilling meals are often empty, meaning that without a proper facility for meals these empty shelves could likely extend to the vending machines.
This leaves students with less than healthy foods and not even proper meals, simply snacks and sweets.
One solution to this problem is providing food waivers for students to be able to purchase their own meals of choice from a store that they can bring with them to campus.
Providing even $50 a week to students would make a significant impact.
Just at a glance, an at least moderately healthy and full frozen meal could be purchased for around $4 from Ralphs, Target, and other similar nearby stores.
It would also help provide food at home and overall quality of life for students. A higher quality of life should lead to more success in classes and would not only help students succeed but also the college.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many students take classes online and never show up on campus.
If those students struggle with food, especially healthy options in the face of rising food prices, there are services such as HelloFresh and Blue Apron where contracts could be explored to help provide these services to students that need them.
These services are constantly looking to expand their reach and impact, with HelloFresh already providing 15% off to all students for 52 deliveries. So why not build off of this with a special contract for LBCC students?
Long Beach City College has several options and a heap of money from MacKenzie Scott to help improve student equity, making for an obvious and potentially more rapid response to the situation that helps more than just the students on campus.
Even though the fate of this donation has already been decided, a portion should still be reallocated to serve the changing needs of students on campus.
With 30 million dollars just sitting around, the cost of the food trucks being brought could at the least be cushioned for students by bringing menu items down from the ludicrous amounts of up to $22 to around $10.
Small actions such as this are part of the long game in terms of truly improving students’ campus experience and it starts with not asking students to break the bank just to eat a proper meal.
However, this solution would only apply to students on campus when this situation gives the college a chance to reassess how it handles food for students going forward, which should be a goal of the college.