SAN MARCOS — With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, the Palomar College Associated Student Government (ASG) led a food drive on campus earlier this month, gathering 504 pounds of nonperishable stock for the Anita & Stan Maag Food & Nutrition Center.

The Nov. 6-7 drive—organized as part of the ASG’s “Basic Needs Awareness: Stock the Bank” event—also yielded a number of non-food essentials that are also stocked at the center.

“It’s wonderful to see our campus community contributing so generously to the Food & Nutrition Center during this giving season,” said Palomar College Superintendent/President Dr. Joi Lin Blake. “At Palomar, we are committed to ensuring that each student’s basic needs are met.”

The Palomar College Office of Student Affairs has operated a food pantry for 34 years, providing weekly food distributions and longer-term support for students who need it, but the program outgrew its previous home. This year’s holiday is the second Thanksgiving for the Anita & Stan Maag Food & Nutrition Center, which was expanded from a single room in 2018 to provide additional resources to address student food insecurity.

With the new space, the college now has refrigerators for distributing nutrient-rich produce and dairy, as well as a staging area to accept pallets of food.

For more information about the Anita & Stan Maag Food & Nutrition Center, please visit https://www.palomar.edu/studentlifeandleadership/student-assistance/palomar-college-food-bank/