By Ashley Berry, Political Science Major

&  Maisarah Miskoon, Business Administration and Liberal Studies Major

It has been two years since the food pantry opened its doors in November 2013, and since then, we have given away 35,000lbs of food away from Good Shepherd Food Bank alone; recovered 422.6lbs of food from Sodexo Dining Services, the McKernan Center, and Culinary Arts; and finally, collected 440lbs worth of food from the combined food drives from Sodexo Dining Services and our very own Nursing Club this semester.

Since then, the SMCC Business Club and Spring Point Children’s Center, as well as various faculty and community members, have generously collected and donated food to our little pantry in light of the upcoming holiday season.

As a volunteer who has been with the Cupboard since 2013, and who became the interim Student Director during the Summer and Fall ’15 semester, I (Maisarah) am exceptionally proud of every single one of my team members, volunteers, coordinators, community leaders, fellow Directors who started and managed the pantry, our departed AmeriCorps Vista Volunteer, Madelyn Holm, and the helpful advisors that we have had and have over these two wonderful years.

Quite honestly, it has and always been a team effort and we have been fortunate enough to have amazing, selfless volunteers to help run the pantry every semester, new and old students from different walks of life, a community for the community.

We finally had our “Captain’s Cupboard” sign constructed this semester, designed by Phil Cormier, one of our Communications and New Media students, thus making our presence more visible on campus for students.

Although we are proud of everything that the Captain’s Cupboard has accomplished thus far, there is so much more that we would like to do. Our list of goals is long, some that can be more accomplished more easily, and some that we have dubbed our “lofty” visions.

We love the Captain’s Cupboard so much and we know that we can reach more people and provide more services. So, here are our plans for the upcoming semesters!

One of the first goals, which falls under our easily accomplished goals, is Captain’s Cupboard t-shirts for our volunteers. We have some pretty amazing volunteers and we would like them to be recognizable on campus.

This ties into another goal we have: we want people on campus to be aware of the Captain’s Cupboard. Not everyone may know who we are, what services we offer, or even where we are located; so we are putting a lot of effort into changing that. We have started by increasing our presence on social media, so everyone should connect with our Facebook and Twitter pages because that’s where everything gets posted!

A dream that will soon come to fruition for us will be a Captain’s Cupboard blog. We really want students and community members to understand the goings-on of the Captain’s Cupboard. Our extraordinary volunteers put a lot of hard work into keeping the Captain’s Cupboard up and running. Despite the hard work, more often than not we have a lot of fun together because we love what we’re doing. We figured we would really like to pass on all that love to the SMCC community through these extremely interesting and love filled blog posts, so look out for an update on the new blog on our Facebook page!

We have also spent some time trying to figure out how to best reach dorm students and we understand that cooking healthy meals in dorm rooms isn’t easy. However, it is not at all impossible. The Captain’s Cupboard would love to host cooking classes that emphasize the few appliances dorm students have access to, namely microwave ovens and crockpots. There are some really great recipes that are fresh and healthy that can be made with these appliances. We want all our dorm students to be able to enjoy some healthy, home cooked style meals. We personally find that a nice meal works wonders on any woe.

Another “lofty” vision of ours is to be able to open a food pantry on the Midcoast Campus, aptly called the Pilot’s Pantry. That campus is expanding rapidly and surely there are students who face similar food insecurities. We are really proud of what we have done at the Captain’s Cupboard and would welcome being able to expand so we can help more of our fellow students.

Second to last, many people may be familiar with hunger banquets, started by Oxfam America. The Captain’s Cupboard would like to host a hunger banquet at SMCC. During these banquets, the food you’re served and the place that you sit is all determined by chance. These banquets are interactive events that very often change perspectives on poverty and food insecurity.

According to the Good Shepherd Food Bank of Maine, more than 208,000 people in Maine live in food insecure households. Events like hunger banquets help shine a light on this issue that affects so many people. Hopefully, by making people more aware of this growing issue, we can find ways to help alleviate some of the food insecurity in our community and beyond.

Lastly, we at the Captain’s Cupboard want the entire SMCC community to know that we are here for you. Being a student is hard, and worrying about how you are going to be able to eat should not be an issue. We are trying to be a substantial resource on campus and we urge you to seek us out if you should find yourselves in need of some help.

We’re happy about the students we have been able to help thus far, and we hope to be able to continue to reach more students as we continue to expand the Captain’s Cupboard.