“I got out of prison three years ago and since getting out, I live on my own, almost self-sufficient, but I wanted to take my schooling a little more seriously,” he said. “In order for me to give more of my time to schooling, I would cut back on a little bit of my work. And so, I go to the DEN every week for food.”

The university’s Obershaw DEN, or the DEN for short, which stands for Delivering Emergency Nourishment, and the Palm Desert Campus (PDC) DEN assist currently enrolled CSUSB students who face food insecurity or scarcity. Located on both the San Bernardino and Palm Desert campuses, the food pantry is part of CSUSB’s Basic Needs program to support students’ well-being and basic needs.

Samantha Gallardo, a recent CSUSB alumna, fell on hard times when her husband was laid off and she had just begun school. She, too, turned to the DEN in a time of need.

“The first time I went to the DEN, I had just started back at school here at CSUSB and my husband and I had just gotten back from Mexico,” she explained. “We had gone to Mexico for his visa appointment. Unfortunately, things did not go well, and we were in Mexico for a month awaiting any answers.”

When Gallardo and her husband returned to the United States, they were “completely broke” and were unsure how they were going to continue to provide for themselves.

“My husband had been laid off and I was barely starting school. When I came back to campus, I saw a lot of information about the DEN, and I went in and was able to grab a couple of things for a couple of meals for a week,” she said.

That one week of assistance from the DEN helped her and her husband immensely. After that experience, Gallardo felt comfort as a student, knowing that this on-campus resource was available to her if she ever fell into a moment of need again.

For Tafoya, his experience with the DEN continues to be a welcoming one.

In addition to the DEN, CSUSB’s Basic Needs program offers students financial assistance, short-term emergency housing and connects them with additional outside resources.

After an accident at work, Tafoya worried about paying his rent. The program helped him with an emergency grant. “That grant was able to lift me, to pay my rent, to get me over the hump that I was going through. It really was an emergency in my mind, in my heart. I was stressing on it. It allowed me to get passed it,” he said. “That emergency grant money that they have … helped me in that time of need.”

Since the launch of the CSU Basic Needs Initiative in 2016, CSUSB has taken strategic steps to ensure students have access to a variety of campus resources, such as the Obershaw DEN and emergency grants, as well as community resources to meet their basic needs, so that all students can reach their personal and academic potential. The CSUSB Basic Needs program’s mission is to empower students to reach their health, wellness and academic goals by connecting them to the resources they need to ensure their success.

For Gallardo, CSUSB’s resources helped her tremendously in a time of need and highly recommends the DEN to any student who finds themselves in a similar situation.

“I have told other students that the DEN is super helpful in any basic needs,” she said. “You can go in a grab a snack or a couple of necessities.”

Tafoya underscores the importance of the DEN, highlighting the fact that there is no shame in needing help. The DEN, he says, has “good food and good people.”

“Don’t hurt yourself because of your pride. Go there because everybody’s ready to help you. That’s what they’re there for. They’re not going to look down on you,” he affirms. “They’re there to support us, to help us and to help us grow as students and be as successful as we can.”