This afternoon, all Columbia students received an email from Food Bank co-founders Michael Higgins, GS ’18, and Ramond Curtis, GS ’17, as well as members of the USenate Student Affairs Committee, announcing that the Food Bank at Columbia will be fully operational starting this September. This Food Bank will provide two weeks’ worth of non-perishable food to students with any level of food insecurity. In addition, it will provide food to the families of students with spouses and/or children. The Food Bank also has a permanent location, on the fifth floor of Lerner next to room 573.

This initiative “will allow students to focus their energy on their education rather than on how they are going to get their next meal”, Higgins and Curtis wrote. The Food Bank’s establishment is a great victory for members of GSSC and USenate, who have been working towards this program for semesters.

The Food Bank is currently seeking volunteers to serve on its committees for web design, communications, operations, development, and finance. Their application is here, and any questions or requests for food disbursement can be directed at cufoodbank@columbia.edu.

Read the full email after the jump

Melissa Ho (CC ’19) comes to us from a less exotic locale—a charming, rodent-infested Harlem apartment with an uncommunicative super. In between her city internship and gallery hopping, this contributor is kept awake by irritants, including the animal, human, and ambient. Feel free to share in the fun (?) by sending in your own impressions of your summer home to tips@bwog.com. (And browse the tag here.)

Where: The living room of an oppressively gray building next to Chapati House.

Sight:

Sound: Most often, the steady drone of the air conditioner. At night, the teeth of the mice. About twice a week, the telltale noises of my flatmate and her boyfriend engaging in urgent after-dinner sex.

Smell: Rice, fish, incense, and soap.

Taste: The same meal I’ve made every night since converting to strict vegetarianism: a fried egg, jasmine rice mixed with eggplant spread, and romaine hearts. Salt to taste.

Images courtesy of Melissa Ho