OCC opens food bank for students

COSTA MESA — Gulf War veteran Sage Michael set out last year to help fellow Orange Coast College students who were struggling to get into a four-year university.

He soon realized that some needed more than a letter of recommendation. They also needed food, clothes, toys for their children — or just a roof over their heads.

OCC is in a mostly affluent area, but it still has its share of poor and homeless students. So Michael, who founded the campus Volunteer Center in August, helped launch a food bank this month to provide supplies to his most impoverished classmates.

“I would not have thought that at OCC we have homeless students,” Michael said.

Michael and his colleagues in the Volunteer Center — fellow students Rebecca Cherco, Susan Mann, Myra Merritt and Sarai Crowse — officially opened the food bank on Monday. The bank, located temporarily in a cramped room at the back of the humanities building, offers items donated almost entirely by other OCC students.

Not all of the items are hand-me-downs. A few students went shopping at local malls and provided brand new books and clothes. “It only took us a week to get that kind of stuff from the students,” said Cherco, whom Michael credited with the original idea for the food bank.

By the end of May, the food bank will have to find a permanent location; Michael said if the campus was unable to produce one, he might sell all the donated items and use the money for scholarships. Michael, 35, can identify with the students who pass through his stockroom — sometimes tearfully — to gather basic necessities. He spent part of his youth in a shelter and had difficulty finding a job after his mother withdrew him from high school.

When Michael enrolled at OCC a year ago, he created the Volunteer Center to guide students to community service opportunities and help them with scholarships, letters of recommendation and other services. The center has coordinated events with Second Harvest Food Bank, the Orange Coast Interfaith Shelter and other nonprofits, and is in the process of building a home for a needy student’s family.

The campus food bank is the latest project of the Volunteer Center, and others in the community have already rallied around it. The OCC bookstore donated the shelves, while the Charlotte Russe clothing retailer was expected to deliver hangers. Michael said he was eagerly awaiting the second item, as clothes had piled up on the shelves of the food bank.

“It’s a good problem to have, though,” he added.