Community Resource Room

Short answer: The CRR is for anyone who eats!

Long answer: The Community Resource Room can be accessed by on-campus undergraduate and graduate students through our CRR Online Order Form. This includes international students, as well as both residential and commuter students. We hope to expand this resource to our greater Simmons community over time.

Utilizing the Community Resource Room will not impact your access to other supports on/off-campus, or impact your immigration status.

“Choral Bucks” is the way the Community Resource Room assures that our resources are accessed as equitably as possible. “Choral Bucks” are free “points” that determine how many items each student is eligible for based on if they are a residential or commuter student.

The REEF Support Center is open M-F 8:30-4:30pm. A Food Advocate (our student employees who staff the CRR) are available 12-4 pm. Contactless pick-up is available at any time once you receive a notification that your order is ready.

When we adopt an automatic tracking and online order method, we hope to provide an opportunity for students to access the CRR multiple times per month. At this time and for the purpose of manually tracking the items included in each student’s order, students are eligible to place one order per month.

Each student is required to complete the CRR Registration Form before utilizing the CRR so that we may accurately meet the needs/wants of our community, as well as assess where additional support can be implemented. The demographics collected in this form will be kept private from fellow students/departments and will be reported only in aggregate (group) form for reporting and advocacy purposes. You will never be identified individually. The information shared will not impact your eligibility to utilize the Community Resource Room or impact your access to other supports on/off-campus. Collecting the data will aid us in telling a powerful story about our community and further emphasize the importance of sustaining the Community Resource Room.

The CRR Online Order Form is the form students use to place their orders with us on a monthly basis. Once you complete the CRR Registration Form, you can immediately place your first CRR order by using our online form.

To assure that the CRR is as equitable and sustainable as possible, we will be utilizing a point system “Choral Bucks”, to determine how many CRR items students can be accessed each month. Our point system is a tool borrowed from our friends at Bunker Hill Community College’s DISH Food Pantry.

• Commuter students are able to access 30 “Choral Bucks” per month
• Residential students are able to access 15 “Choral Bucks” per month (30 for months of September and January)

Students will place their orders 1x per month so that we can monitor how much supplies are available. Each food item will have a designated # of “Choral Bucks” listed on our order form. The point value will be determined by how often the item is requested and not the nutritional value or unit price of the item. Choral Bucks are not connected to the point system that you may utilize in Simmons dining halls. For example:

• 1 jar of jelly= 1 point
• Bag of chips = .5 points
• Items such as laundry detergent may be limited to 1 per order to assure that we have a selection for all students.

We offer contactless pickup. Once you have placed your CRR Online Order form, your items will be typically available for pick up within 48 business hours. You will receive an email notification when your order is ready.

*No ID or proof is needed to pick up your orders. This is an intentional part of making services as accessible as possible!

The REEF Support Center/ Commuter Lounge/Dix Scholar lounge space is typically stocked with some snack options each week that can be utilized without making an order through the CRR. These snacks are replenished as regularly as we can and we invite you to check there first. The lounge space also has a fridge where community members will often donate items for fellow students.

If you have already made an order for the month and you are in need of additional food, please contact [email protected] to get connected to additional food supports, including those through the City of Boston. You can also visit the REEF Support Center Food Access website.

All items will be packaged in Simmons University branded refrigerated lunch boxes. We ask that you bring back your lunch boxes each week so that we can re-use them!

When we first opened in Fall 2022, 294 community survey responses and two “Food and Feedback Sessions” helped inform what our Community Resource Room would look like! This is also why our Community Resource Committee comprises students, faculty, and staff. Our Student Committee is a volunteer committee that meets monthly to provide feedback, brainstorm ideas, and critically think about what accessible food access at Simmons looks like.

The feedback and data we collected have directly determined the items we offer. We review our item selection on a yearly basis based on the feedback of our users.

Thanks for asking!

Community Resource Room Amazon Wish List:

• We are always looking for donations. You can donate items from our Amazon Wish-List or schedule to drop them off in person by emailing [email protected]. Our wishlist is determined by what items are most in demand, the advice of our student committee, as well as the students who utilize the CRR.

Volunteer with your club, organization, or department! You could:

• Assemble and donate care packages for occasions like Back to School, Finals, or Heritage Months
• Create general cards to include in CRR orders for occasions such as finals. We ask that card wording and contents be reviewed by Community Resource Room Committee.
• Sponsor/design a recipe or cooking tips to include in CRR orders
• Advertise your event or resource by sharing your flyers or department SWAG
  • Oversee an item/food drive for the CRR (this is a great opportunity to help us source locally owned, BIPOC-owned, and LGBTQ+-owned brands)
  • Have a dentist appointment? Drop off your new toothpaste, toothbrush, and floss to share with a community member and help us stay stocked
  • Have unused office supplies? Donate items for our students to access for school.
  • Share information about the CRR with your friends through social media, word of mouth, or by placing an order together!
  • Add the CRR to your meeting agenda or email [email protected] to invite one of our “Food Advocates” to present about this resource

Bagging Volunteer in the CRR:

• At this time, we are not accepting individual volunteers at the CRR. Once we get into the groove, we can’t wait to invite community members to volunteer with us by bagging orders. For right now, we are waiting until we figure out all of the operational logistics. Stay tuned and we appreciate your patience!>

Please contact [email protected] to coordinate a volunteer opportunity!

• Matoaka Kipp, REEF Support Center
• EriKa Monfort, Multicultural Center
• Stephen Pusateri, Military & Veteran Services
• Ela Kijowska, Center for Global Education
• Val Leiter, Interim Dean, College of Social Sciences, Policy, and Practice
• Abi Bloom, Student, Simmons Hillel
• Kadijah McClean, Student, SGA Chair
• Abigayle Post, ’23
• Zhuoqi Shi
• Justin Tran
• Tessa Federico-Maietta ’23

The CRR Committee is made up of students, staff, and faculty who are passionate about food access. Our team meets 1-2x per semester as a collective group. We use this time to incorporate feedback, identify what is working well, where we can grow, and how we can continue to engage our community in food access work.