Innovative Solutions for Hunger Relief and Student Success

View the report on this project at Beyond the Food Pantry: A Report on the Innovative Solutions for Hunger Relief and Student Success Project.

Almost half of U.S. community college students responding to the #RealCollege survey conducted by the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice indicated that they had experienced food insecurity within the 30 days before completing the survey (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2019). To help community colleges reduce food insecurity for students and their families in sustainable ways that foster student retention, persistence, and success, the League for Innovation in the Community College (League) has launched a two-year project, “Innovative Solutions for Hunger Relief and Student Success.”

With support from a Walmart Foundation grant of $1,258,952, the League worked with two community colleges serving rural, economically distressed areas to develop effective, innovative models for hunger relief that can be adopted or adapted by community colleges and other institutions.

As part of the project, staff, students, and community members at Northeast Texas Community College and West Kentucky Community and Technical College will be trained in Innovation Engineering, a proven systems approach to innovation created by Eureka! Ranch. Eureka! Ranch conducted the training as well as coached the colleges’ project teams as they identifed and developed effective solutions through Innovation Engineering’s use of Fast Fail and Plan-Do-Study-Act processes.

Ultimately, this process looked at the food insecurity problem not in isolation, but in the context of a larger ecosystem and ways it can better support the basic needs of its population.

The Hope Center for College, Community and Justice at Temple University provided pre- and post-assessments of the scope of need among students and their families at the participating colleges.

Resources

Access project resources here.

Contact

Cynthia Wilson, Vice President, Learning, and Chief Impact Officer

        

 

 

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