CC Meal Vouchers Come to the Rescue
Where to get free food during the fourth week of Block 3
Welcome to The Meal Plan Guard. I’m Polly, and I am here to protect your Meal Plan budget. If you missed last week’s edition, find it here.
There is not much planned for the fourth week, but some events still offer free food during this time. In this edition, we will walk through the application guide for a CC Meal Voucher to know how to increase your chances of getting one and learn about the decline of interest in mental health at CC.
What’s on the plate this week?
🍎 For those in need of nutritious produce this week, the CC Food Pantry will be open on Thursday, Nov. 14, between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. They offer a wide range of foods: from canned goods to fresh vegetables.
👀 Spoiler: The next issue will include a piece on CC Pantry to let you know its working hours, regulations, and offerings.
Deadline Nov. 13: How to Apply for CC Meal Vouchers
What is a meal voucher, and how do you maximize your chances of getting one? I talked to Erika Perry-Tuitel, the Assistant Director of Campus Activities who is running this brand-new initiative, to give you the answers.
Run-down of the program
What is a meal voucher?
It’s a ticket that allows you to get a meal without having to swipe your Gold Card, Perry-Tuitel said.
Can I get my meal anywhere I want?
For this Block, we are only giving vouchers for meals in Rastall’s since every meal there has a set price. Utilizing that will reduce any confusion and help make things fair for voucher users.
When do people get the vouchers?
The CC Meal Voucher program will be active twice a year. Applications will be open during Blocks 3 and 7, and CC will give out the meal vouchers for Blocks 4 and 8 to address the time students are most likely to run out of meal plan dollars.
When is the application deadline?
The application deadline for this Block is Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 11:45 p.m. You can apply here, find a QR code on the posters around campus, or on the CC website.
How many Meal Vouchers are you providing?
Instead of a set number of meals available, the program has $7,500 in its budget for this year’s vouchers. Since Rastall’s has different prices for each meal (breakfasts are the cheapest, and dinners are the most expensive), the program will distribute the budget according to the applicants’ needs, which they will express in their applications.
How did this program originate?
One of the things included in a contract with Bon Appétit is 12 late breakfasts per year. We try to diversify the programming of campus activities, so we only hold 4-6 of them (this year, it is 4), Perry-Tuitel said. Despite that, all 12 breakfasts are still paid for, the money burns out, and students don’t get as much food as they could.
According to Perry-Tuitel, Ryan Hammes, an assistant vice president for administrative services in finance and administration, suggested using the leftover money to issue meal vouchers. After benchmarking with colleges in San Luis Obispo, we are starting the program for the first time this year.
Who is eligible for the program?
Anyone can apply, but priority goes to people without a meal plan or with no dining dollars left. Nevertheless, other factors will come into play as well (see below to learn more).
Tips and tricks for those applying
The following advice comes from a conversation I had with the person who runs the CC Meal Voucher program.
The more details you provide, the better we can help you!
This is the most important tip. Give us as many details as you can so that we properly account for your needs. Whether you are an international student, a bridge program finalist, from a low-income family, a first-generation student, or from any other underprivileged background — let us know.
Don’t be shy to apply
If you are worried that your situation doesn’t fit the application criteria, still send your form our way. The goal of this program is to help those who need it, and we will try our best to do so.
Remember that some questions are for demographic analysis
When we ask you whether you have previously used other on-campus resources (i.e. CC Pantry), it is not to discourage you from applying for meal vouchers. We simply want to know what percentage of students in need are aware of this resource and try to remind you about its existence.
Keep an eye on your inbox
Regardless of whether you get a meal voucher this semester, you will receive an email at the beginning of Block 4 letting you know your status.
Mental health training with free lunch is at risk since no one is showing up?
In preparation for this issue, I talked to multiple departments and offices at CC, looking for information for my newsletter.
I would give the same pitch every time: I am launching a newsletter about where to get free food on campus to aid students with food insecurity and help faculty, staff, and others attract more students to their events.
During one of the pitches, a full-time staff member at the Wellness Resource Center asked me for help. Their planned mental health training only got four sign-ups, and they offered free lunches throughout the training during this upcoming Block break, so it was a perfect story for me.
As I was getting ready to interview one of their staff members this week, I received an email about the training potentially being canceled because only a small number of people were willing to do it.
Just like that, a potential peer-to-peer support system might disappear because of a lack of student engagement.
Or was it something else? Perhaps not enough students had heard about the training, or maybe the Block break is too busy for students to take it on. It could be that there is no demand at all, and students’ interest was underestimated. Maybe CC's future strategy changed, and we didn’t know.
If mental health is not one of the top priorities for people on this campus, then what is? And who do we hold accountable?
My name is Polly Panasenko, and I write about food and events on the Colorado College campus. My goal is to contribute to food security and community building at my college by writing about events catered by the school that offer free food for students. If you have an event you would like people to know about, send me a message!