Hidden Hunger

Amelia is not alone — hundreds of Wildcats face these challenging questions every day. When will they have their next meal? Where will they sleep at night? Can they pursue an education while supporting their family? And maybe most difficult of all: When is it OK to ask for help?

“I cannot complain; we have been very lucky and have found resources, but at some point, it gets so hard,” Amelia says.

She received support from the university’s Student Emergency Assistance Fund, which gives students who apply up to $500 to cover unexpected expenses like medical bills or other emergency needs. The fund is part of UNH’s Basic Needs Program, which provides assistance to students who need help getting the food, housing, technology and financial resources they need.

While programs like these have existed at UNH for many years, the last four years have seen a renewed commitment to, and an increased need for, getting support to students who need it the most. “We’ve seen quite an explosion in the number of students using our programs,” says Patty Mathison, the coordinator and case manager for the Basic Needs Program. “It’s hard to balance wanting to support students because of the incredible amount of need we see while knowing we have a very limited amount of resources we can provide.”

“When you think of poverty, a lot of the time, you think of someone begging on the street. But you can also be poor because you want to get an education but can’t afford it,” Amelia says. Originally from outside the U.S., she feels lucky to have the privilege to pursue her doctoral degree, and she’s thankful for the support from the emergency fund and family and friends. “It’s not just about having food on your plate — but when you don’t, that’s when things get very real.”

During the 2022-23 academic year, more than 500 Wildcats received support from initiatives in the Basic Needs Program. Along with the emergency fund, those initiatives include the Laptop Loaner program, which provides laptops for students to use during the academic year; Inn-Between, which helps students pay for housing during university breaks and holidays, as well as emergency housing; Swipe It Forward, which gives students free meal swipes in dining halls; and Cats’ Cupboard, a food pantry in the MUB that provides direct access to free food.

The reasons students come to Mathison’s office vary. For some, the needs are simple, but still urgent — she points to international students coming from other countries with warm climates who arrive in New Hampshire without winter clothing. Some are estranged from their families and arrive on campus without a support system. Other students are experiencing homelessness and living in their cars or couch-surfing, while some are unsure where their next meal is coming from. What Mathison sees most often, though, is that students come to her as a last resort. Part of it is that, like Amelia, these students don’t consider themselves in need. And like anyone might, students find it difficult to ask for support.

The need for help is growing each year. In the 2021-22 academic year, 42 students received aid from SEAF. That number jumped to 234 students who received a total of $113,930 in 2022-23. The number of students using the Swipe It Forward program during that time nearly doubled, increasing from 105 students in 2021-22 to 197 students who received 4,045 meal swipes in 2022-23.

According to the latest National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, released by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2023, approximately 23 percent of undergraduates and 12 percent of graduate students nationally experience food insecurity, while 8 percent of undergraduates and 5 percent of graduate students have experienced homelessness. Students from underrepresented populations and first-generation students are at higher risk of being food or housing insecure.

Resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, like increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits or funds provided through the CARES Act, helped families meet basic needs. Those programs were either rolled back or ended in early 2023, and since then, Mathison says, more students have come to her office seeking help. Inflation, the rising cost of housing in New Hampshire, and other factors have also increased the number of students who need support.

“The need is real,” says Mathison. Her position was created in early 2022 in order to connect students with resources inside and outside the university. That includes helping eligible students apply for SNAP benefits or finding resources to aid students experiencing long-term homelessness. Along with the stigma that comes with asking for support, another difficulty is letting students — and the university community — know about these programs and helping them navigate the bureaucratic challenges that come with them. According to data from NH Hunger Solutions, only half of those eligible for SNAP benefits in New Hampshire are enrolled in the program.

“A lot of it is lack of awareness,” Mathison says. “College students who don’t have a meal plan or receive work-study benefits might be eligible, but they don’t know.”

“A lot of people don’t think college students have financial insecurity or food insecurity just because they’re in college,” says JJ Greenberg ’25.

Greenberg is a first-generation college student, and as the first in his family to balance the demands of earning a degree while working and learning how to be financially stable, he’s encountered a number of challenges. “I’ve been trying to get a hold on my financial situation for a while,” he says. He works during the summer and has an on-campus work-study job — but he only breaks even each month, financially.

He first met with Mathison to talk about signing up for SNAP-EBT benefits. Having steady access to healthy, nutritious food is a challenge. An exercise science major, Greenberg knows that the food he eats — or the meals he skips — has a direct impact on his ability to study and work. He uses the Swipe It Forward program and has visited Cats’ Cupboard; he’s also received financial support from SEAF. But gaining stability in a time when rents, food costs and transportation to jobs or internships come with a big price tag is almost a dedicated pursuit of its own.

“It’s good that I’m being proactive about it,” he says. “But I know I’m still behind in saving, and I know that when it comes time to pay off my student loans … it’s going to be a lot more stressful than it is now.”

What does food insecurity look like for UNH students? Apart from feeling hungry, food insecure students report high levels of anxiety, headaches, a feeling of being tired and spread thin. They’re eating more foods that have low levels of key nutrients and fewer foods with essential vitamins and protein. That’s according to Jesse Stabile Morrell ’99 ’04G ’13G, principal lecturer in the nutrition program.

“For food insecure students, college is not the rich learning environment some of us were blessed to have,” Morrell says. Since 2005, Morrell’s students have been collecting data about student nutrition and health as part of the College Health and Nutrition Assessment Survey (CHANAS).

The effort began when Morrell asked her students to use the results of their own bloodwork and health assessments as part of a class project — a way to make them feel connected to what they were learning. Almost 20 years later, CHANAS has become an ongoing project that has helped shine a light on a population that Morrell says has traditionally been hard to track.

“Young people are more transitory, so our national health survey systems don’t capture them all that well. And so much changes between the ages of 18 and 24, so having these data is vital,” she says. “It’s a population that’s relatively understudied in a comprehensive way.”

Data collected through CHANAS has resulted in some important changes. Alana Davidson ’17 conducted a research project in Morrell’s class in 2013, looking at food insecurity at UNH. Of the nearly 1,000 students who responded, 25 percent reported that they didn’t have reliable access to affordable, nutritious food. Davidson brought her research to UNH faculty and administrators, and those efforts helped create the Swipe It Forward Program. (Read more about Davidson’s journey since graduating.)

For Morrell, seeing CHANAS data launch a program like Swipe It Forward was a major moment. “It really brought attention to this issue and gave us data that was tough for people to ignore,” she says. For example, CHANAS surveys have shown that first-generation students and students who report a disability have higher rates of food insecurity than their peers.

CHANAS has led Morrell to collaborate with campuses around the country to focus more research on young adult health. For her students in the classroom, Morrell says CHANAS is a unique opportunity. “We’re training students on the frontlines of methodology and research projects.” For the university community, it reveals the extent of how many students need help.

“We’re trying to get people to understand it’s not just about bootstrapping your way through college. College is very expensive, and it’s not something people can easily afford now without significant financial stressors — all at an intense, changing time period in a student’s life.”

Those are factors that Greenberg thinks about frequently. He has three siblings, and says his parents have shared the same worries when it comes to shopping for food and supporting the rest of the family. With a little help now, and the benefit of a degree, Greenberg hopes he can break the pattern.

“When I’m older, I want to be rid of this, and I want my kids to be rid of this. I don’t want them to have to think about how much they have to work to get through college. That’s why the steps I’m taking now are good,” he says.

Cats’ Cupboard and Swipe It Forward go a long way toward ensuring students have access to healthy food, but gaps remain. Students considered in “high need” of food receive 20 meal swipes as part of the program, while other students receive 10 meal swipes. Cats’ Cupboard provided 13,350 pounds of food to students in 2022-23, with a total of 1,453 visits during the pantry’s limited weekday hours. Funding for these and other Basic Needs programs comes only from UNH donors.

Kristian Jensen ’82 is one of the donors fueling the efforts to ensure Wildcats are connected with resources. When SEAF was created in 2020, Jensen and his wife, Nancy, were the first donors to endow the fund and have contributed $150,000 to the endowment.

“There’s nothing worse than being cold and hungry,” says Jensen. Throughout his career, he’s focused his philanthropic efforts on fuel assistance, food banks and similar programs. When he heard about SEAF at UNH, he knew it was important to contribute.

“It’s hard enough to get a degree or finish a program, but when someone encounters bumps in the road, you don’t want them dropping out just because of that. If something like SEAF can help them keep going, that’s great for everybody,” he says. “It’s incredible when people put themselves through school, and sometimes they just need a little hand up.”

Others are pitching in too: in the past two years, more than 1,800 donors made gifts from $5 to $15,000 to the emergency fund programs.

According to Mathison, a “hand up” is sometimes enough to keep a student on track toward their degree. Not having to worry about a looming car repair bill or having a place to stay during spring break means that Wildcats can focus on what’s important. “I meet with students regularly who are just fighting with everything they have to go to school,” she says.

And when students are able to continue working toward their degrees, the benefits ripple out. For Amelia, the graduate student who saw her family’s financial stability wither after one missed paycheck, the obstacles she and other students face have a direct impact on the diversity of the campus community.

“Through my experience, I’ve learned to think, who’s missing? Who could be here, or should be here, but isn’t because of their financial situation?” she says. She often thinks she could become one of those people who aren’t here, doing all she can to pursue her goals. She worries the financial strain might make her withdraw. But she remains committed to earning her doctoral degree.

“I cannot tell my daughter, ‘I give up,’” she says. “I have to show her: I am a mom, and it took time, and I had to get help, but I did it. I have to do this.”