Communicating and networking with professors at San Diego Mesa College, San Diego Miramar Lions Club learned that San Diego Mesa College, via The Stand, helped students reduce their insecurity of not having food and clothing by providing them with both through a locally developed community program @ The Stand. A point system, developed for use in issuing food and clothing, ensures that all available resources are distributed to the largest number of students in need each week.
Last year, local Lions were asked to join the cause by helping the college manually cut bag patterns out of donated canvas to literally make food bags. These bags were then used by the students to pick up food and clothing weekly from the “free farmers market” and the pantry at The Stand. The Farmer’s Market itself is made possible via a partnership with Feeding San Diego which, in turn, offers these students and members of Mesa College access to free produce. The overall initiative is part of Mesa College’s efforts towards “Taking A Stand Against Hunger.”
The use and issuance of canvas bags also reduced the “footprint of hundreds of plastic bags” that were being used each week. In January 2020, we teamed with The Stand via Mesa College professors once again, to provide them with the needed cloth grocery bags to help their students carry available food, along with any obtained clothing from The Pantry and free food markets. Both the canvas and cloth bags have reduced the use of plastic bags, and helped all of us to be “kinder to Mother Nature” within our shared, global environment. These efforts and projects such as this one are in direct support of two of the five Lions Club International goals: HUNGER and ENVIRONMENT.
