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Church Opens Food Pantry to ESU Students

EAST STROUDSBURG — East Stroudsburg University is teaming up with a church to offer food to students in need. Rebecca Stephens is a junior at East Strouds...

EAST STROUDSBURG -- East Stroudsburg University is teaming up with a church to offer food to students in need.

Rebecca Stephens is a junior at East Stroudsburg University. Walking out of the campus commons, she learned her university would be teaming up with a church to offer food to students who may be in need.

"I think it's awesome. I think it's a great opportunity for kids to get food that they either run out of or they need," said  Stephens.

St. Matthew's Catholic Church in East Stroudsburg will open up its food pantry to ESU students.

The idea for the collaboration came back in the spring when university administrators noticed some students were going without meals in order to pay for rent or other necessities.

"They came to us and talked to us about this need on campus to feed some students, that there was a food insecurity problem and we have a food pantry here and we thought maybe we can partner with them and so that we can give students privacy, they can come over here and get some food that nobody needs to know but us," said Fr. Jerry Shantillo, St. Matthew's Catholic Church.

The food pantry will be open to ESU students for a few hours every Friday. The nice part about this collaboration is that students don't have to go far. The church is only about a block away from the university.

To respect the privacy of students, the pantry will be staffed by retired ESU faculty volunteers.

Donation boxes have been set up inside many of the campus buildings to add to what is already in the food pantry.

"I think it's nice. I think the school is doing nice stuff lately so this is good," said Kyle Ohocinski, ESU Junior.

Students will need to show proof that they attend ESU, but names will not be taken.

The pantry will open to students on Friday afternoons from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

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