Food Pantry For Harlem College Students Puts Out Call For Help

HARLEM, NY — For the last six years, Benny's Food Pantry has helped students at Harlem's City College of New York make sure they were getting enough to eat without breaking the bank. Now, it is putting out the call for help.

Tara Hernandez, an Afro-Latina immigrant from the Bronx who is currently a STEM student at the school based near West 138th Street and Convent Avenue, created a fundraiser at the end of February to help restock the pantry's supplies.

"The food pantry has invariably been available to more than 500,000 CUNY students who rely on its products to survive another academic day," she wrote in the fundraiser. "48% of which suffer from food insecurity at the hands of a flawed system."

Benny's Food Pantry currently operates out of the North Academic Lounge, and encourages all visitors to take what they need to help feed a family of up to four people. It is stocked with a range of non-perishable food items, and is entirely volunteer run.

It is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and by emergency access at other times, according to a statement from a CCNY spokesperson.

"Benny's food pantry was my bread and butter the few weeks before the COVID-19 shut down," CCNY student Vera Kyeremeh wrote on the fundraiser. "My mother worked overtime in the hospital to pay for our necessities. I remember walking in and seeing the pantry full of me and other students going through a similar situation. We were able to go in and grab a meal for the day or the next day."

"Passing by the pantry and seeing it closed breaks my heart," she added.

As of midday on Thursday, the GoFundMe has raised $1,500 of its $2,000 goal.

You can find out more about Benny's Food Pantry on its website.

This article was updated to reflect that the meals getting handed out by Tara Hernandez and another CCNY student were donated by The Migrant Kitchen, and that the pantry is open five days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.