Tim Grills’s office is essentially a home.
His desk is a very small part of the room, off the left as you enter, in White Hall on the Doble Campus. The rest of the room is floor-to-ceiling shelving, a microwave, a toaster oven, plates, utensils, and a table big enough to sit a family of six. Tim’s enormous Lesley family keeps coming. He says “I have to go shopping today,” gesturing to those shelves, which look pretty full already, stocked with pasta, soup, snacks like granola bars, and protein powder. He opens one of the two fridges and shows off enough frozen meals to feed a lecture hall and more. “One of my kids likes kombucha, so I got it.” Tim, with the air of a weary dad, removes an empty box left in one of the fridges by accident, and laughs. “It’s their own little world,” he says of this quiet room.
This is the Commuter Pantry, and it is open to every commuter student on campus, for free.
Timothy Grills, Lesley’s Director of Hospitality, says he doesn’t ask questions. If you’re hungry, you are welcome. All he asks is that you register, and he wants you to know he is the only one who sees that registration, and it’s only so he knows how much he needs to buy when he goes grocery shopping. Pop-tarts go fast, as do cans of soup in winter, which can be heated up right in the Commuter Pantry. Tim never has enough juice. There are rumors of an incoming air fryer. Students come here, eat, decompress, and study.
Yes, he does all the grocery shopping himself. There’s another reason for that registration. That kombucha. “If one of the kids wants something special, I’ll get it,” says Tim. “No one should have to worry about being hungry when they should be concentrating on being students.”
Find the Commuter Pantry at White Hall on Doble Campus. Donations are accepted here.