Southwestern College will be the first in the region to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and EBT payments at its on-campus food services, Time Out Cafe, and Tradewinds come the fall semester.
Food services at Southwestern college will accept SNAP and EBT payments, formally known as food stamps, by the beginning of the fall semester. Governing Board Member Leticia Cazares and Dr. Kelly Hall, assistant superintendent/vice president of business and financial affairs conceptualized and led the process that would remove barriers to student success.
“We have an obligation to do what we can to make sure all of our students have an affordable and nutritious meal when they come here to take classes,” Dr. Hall said. “It was an equity issue, and I felt like we really need to make this work to help support our students.”
SNAP provides nutrition benefits to help people purchase food. The EBT system is used in California for the delivery, redemption, and reconciliation of issued public assistance benefits, such as CalFresh, CalWORKs, and other food and cash aid benefits, through an EBT card that functions like a debit card.
The college spent about $12,000 on discrete special card readers that will accept credit, debit, and EBT cards. According to Dr. Hall, the college may accept this form of payment in the summer, pending the arrival of the new equipment.
“The machines are very discrete, and there does not have to be any stigma,” Hall said. “When a student pays with EBT, it looks exactly like a student paying with a credit card. So what we're waiting for is to receive those machines, and they should be here any day.”
Although their exact number of students that have SNAP and EBT, Dr. Hall said that well over 70 percent of SWC students qualify for financial aid.
“We know that food and housing insecurity is something many of our students, and people in our community, are dealing with right now. That is a growing issue with inflation, the cost of housing, and more. We also know that our community college students have so many responsibilities. They don't have the luxury of just being a college student, and that is hard enough,” Hall said.
In a student survey used to assess the needs of the SWC community to design the Student Union, the college found that students were staying on campus an average of six hours a day.
“Even though the survey we did was about designing the Student Union, it was such a lightbulb moment for me with regard to our food services and how important that is for our students. I determined that I wasn't going to give this up until we were able to bring this forward,” Hall said.
Dr. Hall said the process to become an EBT retailer was done through about two years of trial and error since the application is geared toward commercial businesses, not nonprofit or government organizations. Upon approval from the federal government, Southwestern College joined 11 out of 116 California community colleges that underwent the process of becoming an EBT retailer.
“The forms are not designed for our kind of organization, but you can do it if you stick to it,” Hall said. “I'm willing to help any college that's interested in learning. I can tell you in 30 minutes when it took me two years to learn because once you know how to do it, it's not hard anymore. I hope colleges will reach out to me because I would love to assist other colleges in making the process less arduous and long."
The SNAP and EBT program is a part of Southwestern College’s initiatives to expand student services to include basic needs support, including SWC Cares, the Jag Kitchen, housing assistance, technical assistance, and more. Students can learn more about basic needs services at the district’s SWC Cares website.
For more information on SNAP and local food assistance programs, including how to apply, visit San Diego County’s website.
