The Los Medanos College Cuisine Club will be holding a dunk tank fundraiser May 10 and 11 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

This staff and faculty dunk tank event will help raise money for a food pantry and awareness on the school hunger as well as enhance student’s access to food.

LMC will be looking to add on to the other dozen community colleges with food pantries in California.

“Students cannot fully concentrate on their academic task if they are hungry or are wondering where and when their next meal will come from,” said LMC Student Life Coordinator Joel Nickleson-Shanks.

According to a recent study by University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Sara Goldrick-Rab, Fifty-two percent of community college students lack food security.

On top of that, 22 percent of students reported limiting or skipping meals because they couldn’t afford to eat, according to an article in The Atlantic.

The Cuisine Clubs’ goal is to create and maintain a food pantry on campus for students who need help getting food.

“By creating this access on campus, we hope to ease the minds of all of our students who are food insecure, especially those students that have children relying on them at home,” Nickelson-Shanks said.

The first food bank came from Michigan State University, which opened in 1993 and has been getting 4,000 annual visits in recent years, Nate Smith-Tyge director of the MSU food bank said in an article by Alexei Koseff from the Sacramento Bee.

“People view it as no different than going to the financial aid office or going to see a counselor in the academic advising center,” Smith-Tyge who is also the co-founder of The College and University Food Bank Alliance said.

For more information on the Cuisine Club, call 473-7554 or visit the Student Life Office in the GA Building.