Fordham University’s Office of Campus Ministry announced the commencement of their annual Thanksgiving food drive in a newsletter sent to the Fordham community on Monday, Oct. 20.
The Fordham tradition involves collecting food and money and donating it to six of Fordham’s partner organizations across New York City. Once the donations reach Fordham’s community partners, they are utilized to purchase nutritious and “culturally-appropriate” food items for their patrons.
According to Director of Campus Ministry Gil Severiano, the food drive typically collects roughly $6,000 in donations between what they receive through the online portal and the donations made at the University Church. However, Severiano said that gathering money is not the sole goal of the food drive.
“Monetarily, we’re not collecting a tremendous amount of money,” Severiano said. “But I think it also tells [our community partners] that we are an active and supportive partner and that we want to make sure that they have what they need for their communities. We just want to help to feed as many people as we can.”
Severiano, who has been at Fordham for 24 years, said that there has always been some sort of food drive that takes place this time of year, but that 10 to 12 years ago, Fordham shifted from collecting non-perishable foods to collecting donations because the previous method “wasn’t working.”
“In the past, we would collect non-perishable foods, so my office would be filled with canned, boxed foods,” Severiano said. “I’d say it’s probably been over 10 years since we realized we were throwing out a lot of expired foods. By giving them actual monetary donations, they’re able to buy much more nutritious food. It’s culturally appropriate, it’s not expired and it seemed like the best way that we could really help our community and support our community.”
Severiano said the food drive is off to a “soft start,” but that her office is currently trying to pick up its speed. Donations can be made through an online portal or at the University Church while they collect their weekly alms.
“We collect donations through the end of November, but we actually will start with whatever money we have,” Severiano said. “We’ll start donating to the community partners that we are partnering with. So there are six of them. There are three groups that we’re working with at Rose Hill, two at Lincoln Center, and one at the Carter Center. Because we’re hoping they’ll be able to buy the food for Thanksgiving, we start actually processing payments earlier than the end of the drive.”
In addition to helping provide food and meals to Campus Ministry’s community partners, the food drive helps promote donating guest meal swipes to Fordham students who are unable to hold meal plans.
“At the same time, we’re also trying to promote donating guest meal swipes from our weekly and our unlimited meal plans,” Severiano said. “That’s a really great way that students can participate in actually helping food insecurity on campus because those meal swipes are donated to students on campus.”
Severiano described the food drive as an easy and “low lift” opportunity for the Fordham community to be able to have an impact on the communities around them.
“I think at Fordham, we talk a lot about being men and women for others,” Severiano said. “We don’t want to just talk about being men and women for others. We want to make sure you have actual opportunities to participate in being a positive influence on our communities here, the communities that we are a part of.”
According to Severiano, the drive also acts as a catalyst towards creating authentic relationships with Fordham’s surrounding communities.
“We’re giving a monetary donation, but it’s also telling our community partners, we see you, we value you, we want to support your communities and this is something that we can do right now,” Severiano said. “It goes back to creating authentic relationships, but that means being there when people need you.”
