The Monda Student Resource Center hosts a handful of resources for students to access in one space. Credit: Sophie Reynolds | Lantern Reporter
Last April, a handful of previously separated campus resources came together to open the Monda Student Resource Center in the Younkin Success Center, located at 1640 Neil Ave. on South Campus.
The Reid Family Career Closet, a previous subsect of the Buckeye Careers program that didn’t have a permanent location, and The Buckeye Food Alliance, an organization started by students that lived in Lincoln Tower, combined their programs into the center.
Using a classroom on the first floor of the Younkin Success Center and funding from donors, a permanent and centralized location was opened to gather these resources and others together.
Dave Isaacs, university spokesperson, said that the services used to exist in various places on campus and wanted to create a more streamlined system.
“One of the things we looked at and recognized was that it would be more effective and much easier for students to navigate if all of those services came together in one location rather than having to find them,” Isaacs said.
Morgan Vibbert, the associate director for the Student Wellness Center that oversees the center, described the overarching goal of the program.
“We support four different areas of essential needs ranging from food insecurity, financial concerns, housing concerns and needs for professional clothing to be successful in careers,” Vibbert said.
The center is also temporarily holding other programs in order to make them more accessible to students, such as BuckeyeLink, Student Life Disability Services and OSU Votes.
The center has plans to place donation bins throughout campus for the career closet and introduce various programing, Vibbert said.
“This year we’re also talking about bringing programming into this space, so providing an education piece as well,” Vibbert said. “So not it being so transactional like you come and collect groceries from us, but then you’re also talking about how you take those groceries to create a nutritional meal.”
