Food Drive Gives SEEK Scholars Chance to Give Back

More than 200 members of the Brooklyn College SEEK Department’s freshmen students ran a successful summer food drive to help community food pantries that provide assistance to people in critical need.

Zoya Khalfin, the coordinator and a counselor for the SEEK Scholars Program, explains that the food drive, part of a statewide initiative of Opportunity Programs United, was a great opportunity for the SEEK freshmen to participate in an activity that will help the Midwood/Flatbush community. Khalfin says it is the first time the Opportunity program has called for a food drive in the summer and given freshmen a chance to participate.

"Typically, these are done in the spring and fall semesters," she says, noting that the SEEK freshmen who participated made the most of it, given the limitations of having this type of campaign in the summer intersession.

"We made fliers and distributed them in every College department," explains SEEK freshman Jennine Roberts. "And we announced that we would back the next day to pick up the nonperishables they decided to donate."

According to Michael Pertain, ’69, who teaches a reading and writing class to SEEK students, the food will be donated to Our Lady of Refuge, a Catholic charity that carries out several interfaith programs, including blood drives and help for the homeless and the needy, with neighborhood synagogues and mosques in order to have the widest reach.

"SEEK has provided us with so much that we feel we are in debt and wanted to share our success with other, less fortunate people," states freshman Arshad Bacchus.

"The impact this small action will hopefully have on people’s lives is priceless," freshman John Chevalier adds, satisfied with the campaign.

SEEK is the Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge program created in 1966 for New York City public colleges to assist underprivileged high school students to earn a higher education degree.