More students are applying for help from The New School’s Student Services gift card program after it was mentioned at the recent town hall, which brought more attention than the program had ever seen before, administrators said.

The service gives students access to Trader Joe’s and CVS gift cards and MetroCards.

Students who are struggling financially and can’t find any help on or off campus, the school is here and ready to help.

During the fall 2015 semester, 23 students were issued cards from Student Health and Support Services. Also, many of those 23 were actually given multiple cards.

According to Tracy Robin, Assistant Head of Student Health Services, the service hasn’t been extremely publicized but has mostly just been traveling by word of mouth at the moment. The lack of publicity around this service is due to it being something they originally just did on the spot for students who came to them and were really struggling.

The administration wouldn’t say how many people applied during the Spring 2016 semester, but said they saw more apply after the town hall on March 3rd.

Due to its recent attention, the Health Services office plans on making sure even more students are informed by doing more to get the word out about it.  

However, with the program getting more well known the hopes are that the system will not be taken advantage of by students who don’t need it. In order to ensure that students aren’t abusing this service, a short list of questions has been created. These are some of the questions you might be asked:

• Are there community resources (like food banks or  soup kitchens) that the student can access?

• How has the student been covering their food/transportation costs prior to this point?

• When has the student last eaten and/or have the means to eat again?

• Does the student need to utilize mass transportation to get to school and/or work?  Do they have any way of accessing mass transportation or other means to get to school/work now?

• Is the student Petrie Fund eligible, and if so, do they have enough resources to wait for their application to be reviewed?

• Are there factors such as mismanagement of budget, loss of job, family issues, drug use, relationship violence, etc that need to be addressed?

The money for the cards comes directly from the Student Health Services Budget. Recently, the President of the New School, David Van Zandt, has contributed to the fund.

Students who can wait at least 48 hours for resources and are Petrie Fund eligible can also apply for this emergency service. The Carol and Milton Petrie Student Emergency Fund is an award given to students who are in good academic standing who are experiencing short term financial crisis but wish to remain in school. The grants can only be given once a semester. If the student applies and is awarded a grant from the Petrie Fund, this money is not required to be paid back.

For the spring 2016 semester there were 17 students given grants from the Petrie Student Emergency Fund, 15 applications were deemed ineligible and there were 7 applications that were incomplete.

Students who are experiencing a more long term financial hardship are advised to meet with support staff inside or outside of the school to take steps towards creating long term financial stability. If Health Services finds that there are seeing more students who are experiencing longer term crisis they plan on developing a system to help them on a longer term basis.

The Student Health Services office is located at 80 Fifth Ave. on the third floor. Go get those gift cards.