Photo by Brad Davis | The Republic A sign identifies the Bull Dog Pantry for students and BCSC families at Columbus North High School.
Food insecurity is real in Bartholomew County and area high schools are offering free groceries to help students.
According to Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) data from the 2023-2024 school year, at least one-third of students at every BCSC school qualifies for free or reduced lunch, with the exception of CSA Lincoln and Southside. That figure eclipses the 60% mark at BCSC’s four Title I schools, along with the R.L. Johnson Early Early Education Center.
That’s why the Bull Dog Food Pantry and Columbus East Food Pantry offer a variety of free goods to any BCSC student or family.
“Hunger and food insecurity is the reality of the world that we live in,” Greg Lewis, pantry coordinator at East, said. “We’re the most affluent nation on earth, and yet there’s still people that don’t have enough food to eat.”
The pantries have operated for more than a decade, brought about through a partnership between BCSC and Gleaners Food Bank.
The Bull Dog Pantry, located in North’s cafeteria, is open every other Friday, with the exception of some weeks due to school breaks. On distribution days, it opens for students-only starting at 3 p.m., and then the wider public from 3:30 to 5 p.m.
The Columbus East Food Pantry is in the hall behind the library and is open every Friday from 3 to 3:30 p.m., with opportunities to peruse open to just students at 2:30 p.m. The East food pantry also takes online orders which people can make by filling out a Google form on their website.
If going to the pantry doesn’t work for a particular person, both offer alternative arrangements to get families the food they need. They just ask that individuals reach out to Lewis, Bull Dog Food Pantry coordinator Tonya Cruser, or any of the other pantry contacts listed on their respective websites at bulldogpantry.com and bcscschools.org/eastfoodpantry to get something put together. The two pantries also take donations and information on how to do that is also on each website.
Lewis, a retired social studies department chair, had been in charge of the pantry at East since its inception — Cruser, who is also a jewelry and glass teacher, took on the role at North in 2019.
“There’s nothing I hate more than seeing a kid have to go without,” Cruser said of her motivation to get involved.
The two pantries are considered chapters of Gleaners Food Bank, which provides each school a certain amount of credit to use every month to order food through its Agency Express Management system.
But since the COVID pandemic, Cruser said, the number of families using the Bull Dog Pantry has dropped precipitously from about 100 families who regularly used it to about 20 families now.
In addition, at one time Gleaners was providing $1,000 monthly to each pantry because of the demand — that has since dropped to $400 each.
“We’re finding I’m having to be more creative with how I go about ordering stuff,” said Lewis.
One example of that is buying Gleaners’ pepperoni pizzas, “that look quite good,” in bulk, making use of the four freezers at the East pantry.
However, the drop in usage doesn’t necessarily reflect that there is less need.
“It’s kind of weird because I think it’s worse now because of prices being so much higher, just on everything across the board, not just food, but we see less people,” Cruser said. “I know they still need the stuff, if anything they need it more.”
Reasons for that could be that word of the pantries availability isn’t getting out or because of the stigma about relying on a food pantry.
“One thing I could say that has been pretty much a constant over our 11-and-a-half years of function is that we’ve always struggled to get students to use it,” according to Lewis.
“I can understand that if I was a high school student — I wouldn’t want to go down there with the chance that I would be seen by a peer,” Cruser said.
To relieve those anxieties, organizers open the pantries half-an-hour before the wider opening just for students, refrain from letting students volunteer during distribution, along with making the alternative arrangements possible.
At East, they’ve considered a delivery option and switching up their hours, something Lewis said could eventually come down the line.
Misconceptions about those who use the pantry can drive some of that stigma as well, Cruser said.
“A lot of times, it’s people who are just going through a hard time, and maybe they’ve been laid off, or they’re doing everything they can and they’re just getting by and so this helps supplement a little bit,” Cruser said “… There’s just all kinds of situations, not just the couple of stereotypes that people tend to think.”
Both pantries typically operate on a points system, assigning families a certain allotment of points. The East Food Pantry allots 20 points per family, with things like meat worth five points, snacks two points, and the majority of items like canned goods and macaroni a point each. The Bull Dog Food Pantry had operated a point system in the past depending on the number of people in a family, but Cruser said since the downturn in usage, they don’t feel it’s necessary.
Lewis said they’ve been pleased to see an increase in the amount of students specifically to use the East pantry as of recently, in part thanks to work done by Amber Wallace, an English and Social Studies TA who also helps out with the pantry.
They’ve seen the number of students to use it every Friday go from single-digits up to more than 20 students. He said in September, 110 families used the East pantry overall.
“The fact that so many kids are using it makes our hearts very, very happy and we’d love to continue to see that build,” Lewis said.
