St. Mike’s students help those in need, grasp impact of food and housing insecurity during week of awareness

Food and housing insecurity can seem the plight of distant locales, but in a week of focused activities, Saint Michael’s students will learn how great the need is in their community – and they’re given the means to do something about it.  

Lara Scott is the Director of Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts (MOVE). MOVE provides service opportunities for the Saint Michael’s College community.

Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week is a national push that Saint Michael’s College has participated in each fall by providing students with opportunities to practice the Edmundite tradition of service through community outreach. This year’s slate of events from November 18-22, organized by the College’s service organization Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts (MOVE), also brings together education, awareness, storytelling and advocacy. This multi-pronged approach affords students a deeper understanding of a complicated public issue and their role in creating a just future.  

 MOVE Director Lara Scott, the MOVE team, and a group of involved student leaders spearheaded Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. She said the activities stamp out fear and stigma and promote conversations around justice for which the silence can, at times, be deafening.  

 “I think students gain something and feel inspired to do something,” Scott said.  

 MOVE has a long list of activities across the week for participants to get involved, and several classes will participate in more hands-on learning related to the week’s themes. 

Learning by doing 

The Thrive food pantry at Saint Michael’s College provides goods to a variety of people to meet varying needs. A sign from Nov. 2024 shows who and how the pantry is being used.

Saint Michael’s student Theresa Carbonneau ’26, one of the student organizers for the week of events, was inspired by several of her experiences at Saint Michael’s when thinking about the event line-up for the week – including what she learned in her Social Determinants of Health class and activities through MOVE, such as serving in soup kitchens in Buffalo, New York, and making crafts for children who are housing insecure. She saw an opportunity to expand the week’s activities to the classroom and, as a result, professors Candas Pinar and Omara Rivera-Vazquez structured their classes’ curriculum around these topics for the week. To Carbonneau, combining education and action make the concepts palpable. 

“I feel that is very important to combine the two because when you are learning in class, you just learn through discussions, articles, and videos,” Carbonneau said. “But when you are going out and either doing field work or listening to someone who first-hand works in that field area, you are able to go out of your comfort zone and see how it plays a role in the world and in someone’s life. 

The classes will host a representative from the Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS), which provides safe spaces for housing insecure people in the local area, to learn more about the program. Students will also take in a meal at the College with residents of Dismas House, which provides transitional housing for formerly incarcerated persons.   

Some MOVE student leaders will present what they discovered while studying the environmental effects of the prison system. And for a hands-on component, participants can assemble hygiene kits for COTS.  

Students can also help their peers directly and gain free entry to select athletic events with donations of non-perishable food items. The goods will stock Thrive, the on-campus food pantry that provides for the needs of students and staff.  

Other activities planned for Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week   

A highlight this year — the entire campus community has an opportunity to see the realities of living in need on the big screen. 

The timing is fortuitous because a Vermont documentary filmmaker is touring her film, Just Getting By, which follows Vermonters struggling with food and housing insecurity. The college will host a screening of the film on Monday, Nov. 18 at 6:30 p.m. in the Farrell Room, which will include a Q & A with filmmaker Bess O’Brien.  The Edmundite Center for Peace and Justice is sponsoring the film screening. 

The film provides an opportunity to learn how pervasive and relevant these topics are here in Vermont, which, in 2023, had the second highest rate of homelessness per capita and the greatest percentage of increase in homelessness from the previous fifteen years, according to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency.  

A still image from Just Getting By, a documentary by Bess O’Brien which showed at Saint Michael’s on Nov. 18, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Bess O’Brien.)

While these issues can seem distant from the life of a Saint Michael’s College student, it is a sobering reminder that individuals and families in their orbit are struggling. Because of programs like MOVE, the Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week activities, and the call to service that the Edmundite tradition instills, Saint Michael’s students are in a position to help.   

Carbonneau said the action doesn’t end with this one week.  

“For anyone who is interested in learning more about food security and how it plays a role in people’s lives and what are the causes behind it, I suggest they sign up for a service trip through MOVE,” Carbonneau said.  

To find out more about MOVE and to get involved, click here.>>