College Hunger in the Northeast

Racheli Cohen grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and attends the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. At UMD, Racheli is pursuing a double major in Government & Politics and Sociology, with a minor in International Development & Conflict Management. She also serves as a legislative representative in UMD’s Undergraduate Student Government Association, and is an active member of Alpha Phi Omega, a national co-ed service fraternity. Racheli is interested in sustainable, community-based development, and public policy that addresses the root causes of social issues like hunger. This summer, she is interning at the Congressional Hunger Center with the Development Team, where she hopes to learn more about careers in anti-hunger work and how she can make an impact in her own community.

Erin Crowell is a native of Scituate, Massachusetts, and a recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Honors College, with a degree in Communications. At UMass Amherst, Erin serves as an executive member of the Parliamentary Debate Team and is a brother in the National Service Fraternity, "Alpha Phi Omega." Motivated by her volunteering with local emergency food relief in her college town, Erin wrote her undergraduate thesis on Food Insecurity in Western Massachusetts. She is passionate about creating long term, sustainable solutions for eradicate food insecurity through policy making and advocacy skills. This summer she hopes to develop further as an advocate through her internship with Project Bread, and take those skills back to her community as she continues her fight for food justice.

Varsha Krishnan is a student from Potomac, Maryland, studying nutrition at Case Western Reserve University. At CWRU, Varsha has many leadership positions within organizations that work to promote student wellness, to improve relationships between the campus and the surrounding community, and to support minority students in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Varsha is interested in community nutrition programs and the concept of food as medicine. This summer, she hopes to gain insights from her peers and supervisors into the policy and implementation aspects of nutrition and food security programs, while she interns at Albertsons Companies Foundations.

Kibiriti (pronounced as KI-bi-ree-tee) (he/him) is a student, organizer, and brother who proudly hailed from The Democratic Republic of the Congo. He works to create spaces for individuals to critically and wholeheartedly nurture their purpose in service of social, political, spiritual, ecological, and economic change. Kibiriti is a part of the advisory committee for Care About Climate and a member of the Alliance of Earth, Water & Sky Protectors. He graduated from William & Mary with a degree in Sociology and a minor in Africana Studies as of Saturday the 22nd. You can find Kibiriti working on gardens, watching anime with his younger siblings, or reading Octavia Butler in his free time.