PTK, an honor society at Fullerton College, in collaboration with the Health Department, will host a festival to raise awareness of hunger insecurity along with the importance of good nutrition. The festival will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sept. 20 at the FC Quad.

The festival will feature free food demos and tastings from Sodexo, a Warhol soup can painting lesson led by four faculty members from the Art Department and information on nutrition.

Sasha Dotterman, president of PTK, is a leading coordinator for the project. Along with raising awareness, she hopes students who attend the event will leave with the knowledge that eating healthy is possible even on a low budget.

Food insecurity is a consistent problem among college students in both community colleges as well as four year universities.

In a study that included almost four thousand students in the U.S., 48 percent reported food insecurity in the past 30 days while 22 percent were qualified as hungry. The study was done by a collaboration of four campus-based organizations including the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness.

This problem is not irrelevant to Fullerton College. During the Spring 2017 semester, The Fullerton College Food Bank got an average of 163 visits per month. The mission of the food bank is to provide nutritious meals to students and their families who are in need.

Aside from raising awareness, PTK will have a bin in the middle of the quad for students to donate non-perishable food items to the food bank as well as a boba fundraiser.

The boba drinks will be sold for $5 each with all profits going to the Fullerton College Food Bank. For every two boba drinks sold, an FC student in need will be able to receive one meal.

“The whole idea that college students are unhealthy, don’t sleep right, don’t eat right — that shouldn’t be happening anymore. We shouldn’t tolerate that,” Dotterman said. “We can overcome and make this change.”