DACC Food Pantry Receives Endowment

Doña Ana Community College (DACC)’s food pantry has received an endowment of more than $10,000 to help fight food insecurity on campus.

The $10,500 donation was made by Lynne and Robert Hartsell to support DACC’s Comfort Casita, the college’s food pantry. The pantry, initiated in 2023, provides food items, cleaning supplies, school supplies, baby items and personal hygiene products to students and staff of the college. Since it opened, the pantry has distributed more than 10,000 bags of food to students and staff.  It has expanded to four other campuses and centers as micro-casitas.

Lynne Hartsell is a former DACC Development Studies instructor who was impacted by students who didn’t have enough to eat.  “I would say probably the last ten years, (it’s a) kind of social awareness of just how many students are going hungry. I mean, so we’re seeing surveys, right? We’re seeing pantries all over the country,” she says.

Lynne says hunger affected her students’ learning, leading her to contact one of her students’ parents. “I didn’t know what kind of mother I would be calling, but she said, `I’m horrified. He hasn’t told me this. I thought he was maybe couch surfing or something. You know, he didn’t have a place to stay, but I didn’t know he was going hungry.’ And she immediately sent him a credit card so he could get a place to live and food.”

Student success is one of the main reasons DACC’s Comfort Casita was created. The intention is to lessen the burden of growing economic challenges our community faces and support student retention, academic success, and overall well-being.