Brahma Bodega and local pantry face high demand for aid.
Three points for each can of vegetable soup. Four points for pasta. Ten points total, per week. Pierce College student Carolyn Mansager is not a math major, but each week she is faced with a challenging arithmetic problem: How can she stretch her Brahma Bodega points to ensure she has enough to eat?
Like more than 60 percent of Los Angeles Community College District students, Mansager experiences food insecurity. Pierce’s free food pantry, the Brahma Bodega, has provided her with support over the past two years. Facing increasing food costs and high demand, the Bodega instituted a point system this semester, which assigns a value to each item and limits students to 10 points per week. Previously, students were allowed to take up to five items per week, regardless of what the item was.
Mansager, a non-traditional college student majoring in American Sign Language and business, said the point system has been limiting for her, as a vegetarian.
“Now, with the point system, I’m getting the same things over and over, because that’s what I can eat and afford,” Mansager said. “If their goal is to address food insecurity, they are failing for me, with the point system. I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t appreciate what I get, because I do, but they were doing better in the past.”
The Brahma Bodega offers students a variety of free services to combat food insecurity, including two hot lunches per week, 10 points of items from the pantry per week and two snacks per day. But limited funding coupled with vast need means that the Bodega has to limit what each student can take, according to Geremy Mason, who leads the Bodega.
The Bodega is funded through state budget allocations, receiving $400,000 per year, according to Mason. That funding is used to purchase food for the approximately 300 students per day who use the Bodega, and to pay Bodega staff and student workers. The Bodega also provides other resources such as free farmers markets for students and their families, providing fresh food to more than 1,000 people, according to Mason.
“We want all students to know that we’re here to support as much as we can,” Mason said. “There are budgetary constraints, and simultaneously, the Bodega is servicing more and more students, with the same finances.”
To receive food from the Bodega, students need to sign up for a Bodega card. According to Mason, about 1,200 students have Bodega cards this semester. The Bodega does not have a maximum family income eligibility for who can receive food support.
“If you don’t have your basic needs met, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to do other things outside of that like go to class,” Mason said. “We try to combat that hunger so students can focus.”
Debbie Decker, the Executive Director of the West Valley Food Pantry in Woodland Hills, works with her organization to provide nutritious free food to about 9,000 people per month, including many Pierce students. She said that in the past several months, the local community’s demand for food has increased, due to the cost of living, inflation and the loss of jobs and housing due to the recent wildfires.
“We’re seeing extreme need,” Decker said. “People are making choices between food or medication, or food or housing. That’s a terrible place to be in, so there’s a need for food assistance.”
The pantry held a grand opening for its new facility, located about two miles away from Pierce, on March 29. The new facility was initially made possible by a $3.5 million state budget appropriation in 2021. Unlike the Bodega, the pantry does require verification that recipients are low-income, but Decker emphasized that most college students that come to the pantry qualify for food aid.
According to the United States Government Accountability Office, about 3.8 million college students experience food insecurity nationwide. The office explains that “studies have found that students who experience food insecurity are more likely to have lower grades and are less likely to graduate compared to their peers.” Mason and Decker both emphasized the importance of combating food insecurity to ensure students’ success in college.
Pierce anthropology and philosophy tutor Ariella Daniali has used the Brahma Bodega since 2022. She said the Bodega is helpful for her because she can pick up quick foods such as instant noodles when she doesn’t pack a lunch, as opposed to feeling hungry during the day.
“Geremy is like a campus parent because he meets our basic needs,” Daniali said. “I think it’s really cool to have a place on campus like this where we can get staple items like beans and rice and stuff, and sometimes produce as well.”
For more information about the Brahma Bodega, visit: https://www.lapc.edu/student-services/spr/brahma-pantry
For more information about the West Valley Food Pantry, visit: https://www.westvalleyfoodpantry.org/