FOOD OPTIONS ON CAMPUS ARE LACKING

This September, thousands of students rushed to Mt. Hood Community College, both new and returning. We all need food and beverages to keep us going through long days and nights of studying. So one would think the college would have ample food options for those studying and working here.

The college has always needed food options to keep students and faculty members productive and healthy. But since the closure of the on-campus Vista Dining Hall restaurant a few years ago, it has not been able to provide students with adequate food options on campus. Years ago, I remember being impressed with the food selection at the Vista Dining Hall. You could buy any food most full restaurants offer!

Now-a-days Mt. Hood is seeing more students enrolled this year than in during the last three years. Many students and faculty members are pondering why there are not adequate food options to handle such a jump in the on-campus population. I spend at least eight hours a day at school, and I know some students have even longer days. Along with the night school students. People spend many hours on campus, so much so that it is like a second home.

With that being said the only choices are “grab-and-go food options in the library café, [and] there are snack vending machines throughout the campus and [there is] Barney’s Pantry,” said MHCC President Lisa Skari.

With that information it can be inferred that there is only one place for students to have access to fresh food: the café in the Mt. Hood Library. Vending machines cannot provide people with the healthy nutrition/calorie ratio needed to eat a healthy diet.

Doctor Abiyo Ayeliya, director of Student Life, informed the Advocate that student demand for Barney’s Pantry is very high, and it sometimes faces coordination issues due to staffing limits on MHCC’s side and on local regulations for food banks.

The café located within the library is a great place to get caffeinated or even grab a good bite to eat, at times. Skari and Jamie Simms (Mt. Hood manager of financial services) noted that the “The Riverview Café is owned by MHCC benefactors Junki and Linda Yoshida, owners of the Riverview Restaurant in Troutdale. They have been able to keep costs down and manage staffing by preparing the MHCC food at the restaurant kitchen.”

But we spoke with some Café employees. And they told us that the Café can get up to 200 customers a day, resulting in it sometimes running out of food to sell.

It’s a long-running campus issue. Simms and Skari said that in April 2017 MHCC established a task force to review the future of food services and to establish what individuals would like to see in food services. The following were identified as the top three needs when it comes to food on campus: Provide a wide variety of fast fresh food at a reasonable price; rotating food carts on campus; and making sure evening food service are available.

The school posted an RFP (open request for bids to complete a new project) – with no lasting resut – and it has since had food vendors fail here due financial reasons relating to COVID-19.

I think we could all agree that we would love to have more food options. But, due to “trying to keep tuition costs low for students, subsidizing a for-profit food operation is difficult to swallow,” said Simms and Skari. With the many nearby competing food options available around campus it is hard to entice a food vendor to serve the campus directly.

Most can agree that we need to change the food options on campus. We need more than a just a café, vending machines, and an overstressed food pantry. These options are keeping MHCC from being a mini-food desert. But I think we as a college could at least seek grants that could help the college afford greater options. Or at least let students decide if a noticeable tuition fee increase is worth being able to eat better food here. The solution to this problem is complex and requires a lot of hard work. But we as a community should be ready to make our college a better place, before we waste another year complaining.