by Aden J. Chua
November 9, 2023

On the 30th of October, holiday journalist Aden J. Chua of the GCC Student Newspaper interviewed Student Engagement and Inclusion (SEI) officer, Madeline Reichler, about the Food Pantry event and the possibility of a Thanksgiving event at GCC.
ADEN
What exactly is the Food Pantry?
MADELINE
The Food Pantry is a free resource that we make available for GCC students, faculty, staff, and anyone in the community that wants to use it. It’s basically a room with some shelves and a refrigerator and a freezer that have food, and anyone can make an appointment to come visit the Food Pantry and get food for free, as well as some hygiene items and personal care items like soap and toothpaste.
ADEN
When did you start doing the Food Pantry?
MADELINE
I’ve been helping run the Food Pantry for the last two years since I started working at GCC, but it existed before I got here.
ADEN
Where is the food pantry?
MADELINE
The Food Pantry is found separate from the Student Union. It’s in a room that is in the hallway that’s off the gym. When students or anybody sets up an appointment, we meet them here in the SEI office and we take them over to the Food Pantry since it can be hard to find if someone is by themselves.
ADEN
When is it available?
MADELINE
The Food Pantry is available any time. Students can make an appointment anytime the SEI office is open, which is 8:00am to 9:00pm Monday through Thursday, and 8:00am to 4:30pm on Fridays, and if someone has an emergency need for food, they can go to the Food Pantry through Campus Safety, so Campus Safety is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
ADEN
Okay. So, the Food Pantry, could it be used for Thanksgiving food?
MADELINE
Yes. We’re always accepting donations of any type of food. We don’t have any special offerings for Thanksgiving; it’s just sort of the food that we have available all the time, but we have been running a food drive for the month of October, so we’ve gotten a lot of donations in.
ADEN
Okay, so could the Food Pantry qualify as a food drive?
MADELINE
A food drive is sort of an individual campaign to collect donations that we’re doing during October with faculty and staff, so it’s sort of a competition where different departments can compete to see who can donate the most food. It’s just for fun, but it’s for a good cause, and the winner gets a trophy. So that’s the food drive, and then when the food drive is over, we just collect donations regularly and we get food delivered from Food Link which is a food bank organization in Rochester.
ADEN
Is there any Thanksgiving event that you all do?
MADELINE
Well, we do have Thanksgiving Break coming up, and most of us won’t be here on Thanksgiving. According to the events calendar, we have events going on throughout November, but I don’t think we have anything that is specific to Thanksgiving on the calendar.
ADEN
Okay. Well, I think that’ll about do it. Thank you for the interview.
MADELINE
Of course.