Farmingdale State College holds food truck Tuesday’s event on campus for students

By Cameron Repetti

FARMINGDALE, N.Y – Every Tuesday, hundreds of Farmingdale State College students line up on the campus center lawn to get free food from the food truck event. Food Truck Tuesdays are one of the many events funded by the student activities fee in tuition. Although this event is extremely popular among students, its fluctuation in timing raises concerns for those who have to miss out due to class schedules. 

The Student Activities Office organizes Food Truck Tuesdays using funds that students pay per semester. Every full-time student is required to pay a $100 Student Activity Fee. This fee helps fund activities like Food Truck Tuesdays which are open to all students throughout the semester. 

According to Student Activities employee, Tori DiDiego, they “hand out about 200 tickets per Food Truck Event”. The food trucks can not offer unlimited supplies, so they prepare for about 200 students. 

DiDiego also noted that “many students do not know that they pay a Student Activity Fee in tuition” or that it funds events like the Food Truck Tuesday events. “A lot of students walk by, thinking it's just a regular food truck where they have to pay, but if they stay to participate, they can get free food,” she explained.

Start times for the event differ, as some weeks Food Truck Tuesday started at 11:00 A.M., but recently, the event started at 2:00 P.M. With the event starting at 2:00 P.M., there are concerns about those in class missing the event as “tickets run out quickly, usually within 20 minutes”, says DiDiego.  

Farmingdale State College student Issac Rodriguez says that at 2:00 P.M., “most people are in the middle of class. I usually have class during this time, but I didn't today”. This student says that, “different timing” will give more people the opportunity to participate. 

Despite these concerns, students say that Food Truck Tuesdays positively impact student life on campus. Rodriguez noted that the event helped him meet new people, saying, “I got to be in line next to a bunch of people I would normally not talk to.”

At Farmingdale, it is not common for commuter students to have meal plans. Because of this, many students go off campus to eat and it gets extremely expensive. Rodriguez says “I normally don't eat food here at Farmingdale, so as a commuter student, it was pretty nice to get a free meal”. 

Food Truck Tuesdays bring students together providing a memorable and free dining experience. As noted by some students, the event’s schedule limits access for those students in class at the time of the event. If suggestions like Rodriguez’s are taken into consideration, the already popular event could reach a wider student population.