On Wednesday, Nov. 16, the Basic Needs Coalition, Office of the Student Advocate and Cornell Progressives will hold campus-wide pop-ups for basic necessities, including household and hygiene items.
Students will be able to request items from a host of supplies including period products, laundry detergent, dental care and toiletries via a Google form, and these items will be available free-of-cost for pickup on brief pop-up locations at Willard Straight Hall, Schwartz Performing Arts Center, Robert Purcell Community Center, Noyes Community Recreation Center and Mann Library Lobby.
In addition to picking up the goods, students are also able to provide an address for the ordered items to be dropped off.
This is the first of its kind of basic necessity pop-up at Cornell University, and it comes after a student-run survey revealed that 18.23 percent of over 500 students at the school experience challenges navigating food resources and 24.08 percent of the students have trouble accessing financial resources.
Basic Needs Coalition, who conducted the survey, has been aiming for the establishment of a centralized, one stop shop, physical Basic Needs Center at Cornell since last year, although progress towards its development has been stalled by administrative hurdles.
This pop-up comes in addition to other initiatives that the students have helped implement, such as SNAP/EBT benefit workshops and a Basic Needs Workshop series sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Students.
This new initiative was sourced from donation drives that the Coalition, in collaboration with Cornell Progressives, conducted from Nov. 7 to Nov. 15, and aims to redistribute the supplies collected.
University of California Schools have conducted similar multi-location “Produce Pop-up” and “Pop-up People’s Pantry” initiatives for community members, though these are sponsored by pre-established Basic Needs Centers at the universities.
Basic Needs Coalition at Cornell plans to conduct a housing workshop the day after the pop-ups, in Rockefeller Hall 132 at 6:30 p.m.