When was the last time you craved a meal, but couldn’t get it? For me, my Nana’s coveted homemade meatball and spaghetti sauce recipe is the one. For you, maybe it’s a loved one’s recipe like mine, or food from your hometown where you grew up, or maybe the restaurant that served that amazing dish and just doesn’t have it on the menu anymore.

Take it a step further.

Imagine not getting any food at all, let alone something you enjoy, or not even knowing where your next meal might come from. Or even waiting days between meals? Think about kids in this scenario. Picture the look on a child’s face when you say, “No, honey,” when they ask for a meal they are craving. And I’m not talking about when kids plead for sweets instead of dinner like I used to!

I’ll be honest – it wasn’t until I started working for the Arizona Food Bank Network that I realized something. Despite all of my privilege and the opportunities I’ve had, I was what we call “food insecure” when I was in college.

I was a first-generation college student and, like a lot of people, went to school without family funds set aside for my education.  With student loan debt piling up by what seemed like the hour, I faced some tough times. My minimum wage work-study job gave me some income, but loans covered little more than the price of my tuition, books, and housing. I had almost no cash for anything else. That “anything else” included food.

I remember skipping meals before class so that I could make food last until I got my next paycheck. I got to have a few meals out at restaurants when my family came to visit, which helped with that week’s meals. I remember the combination of excitement and relief when I found the University of Arizona’s food pantry on campus. I was able to get some new types of food when I was just short of what I needed to get through the week. Aside from the campus pantry, I didn’t know there were other types of help out there for students like me.

Did you know that SNAP is available for eligible college students? I didn’t!

In fact, student eligibility has been made much more flexible during the pandemic, and many more people are getting the help they need as a result.

Knowing what I know now, I may have qualified for SNAP and avoided some of the struggles I faced, but I didn’t realize it was an option.

So please do me a favor, and  share this information with any college student you may know who needs help paying for food. College is an exciting and crazy time; students face a lot of changes, new responsibilities, and thoughts about their future. Let’s work together to give some of them one less thing to worry about.

While I struggled a bit that year, I was healthy enough to work and continue school. I never had to go without entirely, and the really tough times (thankfully) only lasted a little less than a year. As I learn more about hunger, I’m finding how common my experience (and worse ones, so much worse) are in our country.

Did you know that nearly half of all Americans are one missed paycheck away from a financial crisis? It doesn’t take much for a family to face food insecurity or an inability to pay their bills. It’s easy to see why: the rising cost of living, fairly stagnant wages, and record-high debt means some people are just one big expense or a medical emergency away from hunger. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic!

SNAP and food banks help people when they have nowhere else to turn.

I’m very grateful that my personal food insecurity experiences have been few and far between. I hope that when we come out on the other end of COVID-19, our country will be able to come together stronger than ever.

Because, while it was hard to be living like I was that year in college, I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through that when things are harder. Like if you have children. I don’t know how I’d explain to them that the choice is between paying for food or the bill to keep the lights on. Too many families in Arizona and across the country face this reality today. They not only miss out on the food they crave –  things like culturally significant food, or food from their childhoods like my Nana’s spaghetti – parents skip meals entirely so their kids will have enough.

The pain of hunger is real, but what might be even worse is watching a loved one go without.

I hope we can work harder to give everyone an equitable opportunity to provide for their families. I hope more people like you will work with us to fight hunger in Arizona. I hope we can work to make life a little easier for college students here in Arizona and nationwide.  I hope we can agree that everyone deserves access to healthy affordable food. And that everyone deserves to give their kids a birthday cake, celebrate with treats, and enjoy time around the table eating a favorite home-cooked meal.

                                                                      Tristan Brunetti, Development Manager