Article by Kat Tabor
What do community college presidents do over the summer?
Running 1,500 miles in 50 days probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, but that’s exactly how Clackamas Community College President Dr. Tim Cook is spending his summer: on foot and on a mission to support student basic needs.
As part of his Run4Students campaign, Dr. Cook visited Oregon’s 17 community colleges to raise awareness and funding for students facing food insecurity, housing instability, and other daily barriers to education. On July 18, LCC marked his halfway point — stop number eight — where he was joined by student athletes, LCC President Dr. Stephanie Bulger, Student Body President Amelia Hampton, and faculty and staff for the final stretch of the run to the campus track.
Photo Credit: Kat Tabor
“I think this is a fantastic event,” Bulger says. “Many of our students have basic needs issues. And as you know, we have these beautiful hills up here,” she continues. “We’ve heard that students are actually living up in those hills. So this could not be a better moment — a better day — for us, because we are shining a spotlight on the basic needs that our students have.”
Cook says he started the campaign after growing frustrated with how often student poverty is dismissed or overlooked.
“I’ve been concerned about this issue for several years, and I kept seeing it increase,” Cook tells The Torch. “At the same time, I saw people not taking it seriously.”
“What was probably the catalyst for me was hearing someone say, ‘Oh, well, you know, it’s OK if college students have to eat Top Ramen. That’s what I had to do in college,’” he says.
That moment, Cook says, was a turning point that highlighted just how normalized it had become to dismiss the real struggles students face.
“And I said, ‘No, it’s not.’ In fact, I actually got kind of angry,” he says. “It’s really not about eating Top Ramen. It’s about making choices — do I buy textbooks or do I eat?”
Photo Credit: Kat Tabor
At the finish line, a crowd — including LCC’s mascot, Ty the Titan — cheered on the runners. A short reception followed, where participants signed a large banner, and the presidents of each college were invited to autograph a giant magnetic map marking each stop on the route. Afterward, the crowd heard from Cook and Student Body President Amelia Hampton.
“Far too often are our students misrepresented by statistics and their struggles are overlooked,” Hampton says in her speech. Referencing data from The Hope Center’s Student Basic Needs Surveys, she adds, “These are not just numbers — they are real students facing real barriers.”
According to the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC), the state has around 200,000 community college students — representing 52 percent of all students enrolled in public and private higher education.
The Run4Students campaign aims to bring attention to the everyday challenges students face, including food and housing insecurity, limited access to child care, and transportation gaps.
Funds raised during the run will be distributed directly to each of Oregon’s 17 community colleges to support students’ essential needs.
To learn more or contribute, visit Run4Students.org or follow along on Instagram at @run4orccstudents.
