Not-So-Hungry Hearts: Santa Monica College Teams up with Everytable to End Food Desert at Satellite Campus

The scene was a common one: nearly every day students would sit at the tables outside the empty café at Santa Monica College's (SMC) Center for Media and Design (CMD), munching on chips bought from the nearby vending machines. The café, which was meant to open alongside the campus in late 2017, was locked, but the interior was clearly visible through the glass doors and large windows. The space was empty, grey, and devoid of anything resembling food save for a stray water bottle or two. 

For years, the would-be café remained an eye-sore at the CMD. Now, after a years-long struggle to secure a food vendor, SMC has partnered with Everytable to open a SmartFridge Lounge at the CMD.

Located approximately two miles east of main campus, the CMD houses most of SMC's entertainment, film, and media classes, along with a handful of general education classes. Originally called the Academy of Entertainment and Technology (AET), the campus was closed in 2013 with plans to open in 2015 as the new Center for Media and Design. 

According to Project Manager Brad Carpenter from Clive Wilkinson Architects, there were no original plans for a cafeteria at the CMD. Some time later, however, school officials did incorporate plans for a café, which was meant to "provide students, faculty, and staff with a convenient dining and informal meeting space in the center of the site," according to SMC’s official website. However, when the newly-renovated campus opened in late 2017, the space allotted for the café remained empty and unfinished.

The CMD is not the only satellite campus to not have a cafeteria. In fact, none of SMC's five satellite campuses have a working cafeteria. The CMD's location, however, makes it a particularly pressing issue. Located in the heart of Silicon Beach – a district in Santa Monica that is home to numerous media firms and tech startups – there are few options for hungry students to purchase food. Like in the other satellite campuses, students can purchase items from vending machines or from the food trucks located on Pennsylvania Ave.

Both options, however, are limiting, especially in the face of new reports on food insecurity among college students.

According the 2020 #RealCollege report from Temple University's Hope Center for College, Community and Justice, a significant amount of college students are food insecure. The Hope Center's report defines food insecurity as "the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, or the ability to acquire such food in a socially acceptable manner. The most extreme form is often accompanied by physiological sensations of hunger."

The report found that "approximately 42% of students in two-year institutions who responded to the survey experienced food insecurity" during the 30 days preceding the survey, and almost half of survey respondents from two-year schools worried about running out of food (44%) or could not afford to eat balanced meals (45%).

SMC officials struggled for years to secure a food vendor to operate the café, largely due to the  fact that the space is too small to accommodate a working kitchen. As a result, any vendor who accepted the work with the college would be forced to prepare the food off-campus and deliver it daily. 

Enter Everytable. 

According to its mission statement, Everytable, which opened in 2015, aims to "redefine the food landscape the same way McDonald's did fifty years ago." Instead of serving up burgers and fries, however, Everytable wants to sell "nutritious, fresh, made-from-scratch food, at fast food prices." 

In order to do so, Everytable prepares their meals in a central kitchen, then delivers them to their vending locations. Everytable has locations at or near other colleges, including near USC, Cal State LA, and Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Everytable at SMC will operate through its new SmartFridge technology, which are large, cashier-less vending machines. Users swipe their credit cards in order to open the fridge and inspect the meals inside. Once the door is closed, the SmartFridge scans its contents and charges the credit card for any item that was taken. Meals purchased through the SmartFridge will be priced at starting under $5.00. Food options include wraps, salads, and juices. 

Everytable CEO Sam Polk has stated, "We are in awe of the courage of so many of these students who often come from underserved neighborhoods, who travel across town every single day, and in many cases, work to support themselves while they are going through a very difficult education in order to better their lives and improve their career trajectories."

In a press release, SMC officials stated that instead of paying rent as other college vendors do, Everytable will donate 300-500 meals a week to SMC's new centralized food pantry, "which food insecure students can receive free of cost."

Lizzy Moore, President of the Santa Monica College Foundation and Dean of Institutional Advancement said, "Santa Monica College Foundation is determined to provide our students with an affordable and world-class education — and that includes a resolve to provide actionable solutions around hunger and food insecurity," said Moore. "This partnership with Everytable is a significant step toward eliminating the food desert on and around one of our satellite campuses by providing healthy, affordable meals for our students and our campus neighbors. 

"This is an exciting moment for Santa Monica College, in which two organizations have come together in such a creative, organic way, to help ensure that we are taking care of the whole student — and not just their academic or intellectual needs,” said Dr. Kathyrn E. Jeffery, SMC's Superintendent and President. “A hungry student cannot focus clearly and the learning process and experience is compromised. This new Everytable lounge will play a significant role in helping SMC students fulfill their academic goals...To me, this is a genius collaboration where great thinking has yielded a timely and purposeful solution."

While there are certainly limitations to the SmartFridge system — users need a credit or debit card in order to purchase food, which not all students have — it is nevertheless a vital step toward eliminating food insecurity among SMC students. 

The new Everytable Lounge will be open Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on Fridays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.