Kelly Heckert wheels the frozen chicken wings, fresh sweet potato, boxed pasta, bottled juice and other foods in a red wagon in Butler County Community College’s Pioneer Pantry. That food will provide supplemental nutrition for the adult literacy student and her 5-year-old granddaughter.

“Not only are they educating us,” the 51-year-old Butler resident said about students attending the community college, “But they are making sure we are getting the right nutrients.”

Patronage in three years has increased 89% in the Pioneer Pantry, created by BC3 following a student survey. The state Department of Education has recognized this measure the college has taken to address food insecurity when the state named BC3 as a Hunger-Free Campus.

The inaugural Hunger-Free Campus designation recognized 28 institutions of higher education in Pennsylvania that have taken measures to address student hunger and qualifies those institutions to seek related grants, according to Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration.

Pennsylvania community colleges collectively serve more low-income students than any other sector of higher education, according to the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges in a report released in March.

The 2022-2023 state budget allocated $1 million to begin a grant program to support the Hunger-Free Campus initiative to combat food insecurity at post-secondary institutions.

Grants would help institutions of higher education enhance food pantries, increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program outreach, improve data gathering, and participate in other initiatives that help meet the nutritional needs of students, according to Wolf’s office.

“We are always looking to grow,” said Karen Jack, BC3’s project director of a KEYS program whose low-income students, such as Heckert, receive SNAP benefits.

This comes with setbacks, however. Nearly 20 half-gallons of milk were discarded when a compressor failed in a refrigerator used by the Pioneer Pantry sometime during a three-day Labor Day weekend in September.

“Those things happen,” Jack said.

Jack leads BC3’s food security team, a group of 10 college administrators or faculty members who address food insecurity among BC3 students and employees.

“Having grants and extra money (will help us) to be able to purchase those kinds of items if we need to or for just expanding,” Jack said.

BC3 opened the Pioneer Pantry on its main campus in Butler Township in September 2019. The opening followed a 2018 Wisconsin Lab Study survey in which 38 percent of 304 BC3 student respondents indicated they experienced low or very low food security.

“The college really took that to heart,” said Nick Neupauer, president of BC3. “We’ve done great work in this area, and obviously that work was validated by this tremendous recognition.”

Food security, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “means access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.”

Nearly half of community college students in Pennsylvania are considered to be of very low-income, coming from families earning less than $30,000 annually, according to the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges in March.

“I can’t even begin to say how appreciative the people are who visit the pantry,” Jack said. “It is just amazing to me. Even if we serve one student in a week, we help one student not to have to worry about food.”

The Pioneer Pantry served 644 BC3 credit and noncredit students and their families, or BC3 employees and their families, in 2021-2022.

It served 555 in 2020-2021 and 341 in 2019-2020.

Following the establishment of its Pioneer Pantry, grab-and-go stations debuted and provided free food to students attending BC3’s locations in Armstrong, Butler, Jefferson, Lawrence and Mercer counties.

The college created its additional locations to serve under-represented Pennsylvania counties with higher education.

The percentage of residents reported to be in poverty in Pennsylvania counties are 11.7 in Armstrong, 7.4 in Butler, 11 in Jefferson, 12.9 in Lawrence and 12.4 in Mercer, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“We constantly communicate the availability of food insecurity assistance through both the Pioneer Pantry and our grab-and-go station,” said Ryan Kociela, director of BC3 @ Cranberry in Cranberry Township. “These resources have been utilized by numerous students. The grab-and-go station is a quick and discreet way to help address food insecurity for the students at BC3 @ Cranberry.”

An estimated 36% of students know someone who dropped out of college because of food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, and roughly 52% of students who faced food or housing insecurity in 2020 did not apply for support because they did not know how to do so, according to the Wolf administration.

About 22% of all undergraduates in 2016 had dependent children, and 14% were single parents, according to a 2018 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Heckert, the single BC3 adult literacy student helping to raise her kindergarten-age granddaughter, is pursuing a commonwealth secondary education diploma at BC3. She then intends to enroll in one of the college’s associate degree programs.

BC3’s Pioneer Pantry “gives me a chance to make sure there are things at home for us,” Heckert said. “It takes a community to support a community.”

BC3’s Pioneer Pantry is open this fall from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays through Dec. 13.

BC3 employees and community partners raised $5,100 during a week of charitable giving campaign in September. The money will be used to assemble and distribute about 120 food boxes to Pioneer Pantry patrons and their families during the 2022 holidays.

Members of BC3’s food security team are Amanda Fleming, college business services specialist; Amy Gallagher, career development coordinator/academic adviser; Jack; Juli Louttit, director of financial aid; Mikayla Moretti, director of special events, BC3 Education Foundation; Erica Nail, assistant professor of business; Josh Novak, dean of student development; Torey O’Donnell, associate director of student life; Morgan Rizzardi, director of admissions; and Jennifer Taylor, instructor of business and coordinator of the college’s hospitality management program.