With a growing number of post-secondary students dealing with food insecurity as living costs rise, Brock University’s Food First program is doing what it can to help.
Not only in the form of providing gift cards, but connecting students with community resources.
“Food insecurity is a huge issue that nobody talks about because it’s embarrassing and it’s upsetting and they feel very vulnerable but it’s there,” said Alex Wilder, vice-president of equity and inclusion with the graduate students association (GSA).
Prior to 2020, Food First was run by the GSA and Brock’s students union (BUSU). But as the need increased across campus, the students’ unions partnered with the university to work together, meeting quarterly to discuss issues and options to best support students.
Brock manager of community experience and leadership Kristen Smith said Food First gives students grocery store gift cards of about $40 to $50 to fill a gap for students on a temporary basis.
Nearly two in five post-secondary students in Canada experience some form of food insecurity — about 30.7 per cent experience moderate food security and another 8.3 severe.
From May 1, 2022, to April 30 Food First gave away $48,000 in gift cards to Brock students. The year prior, the number was $16,000.
“That just shows how much the need has increased,” said James Maxwell-Barillas, BUSU president. “We’ve also had to lower the dollar amount of the gift cards so that we’re able to help more people. It’s very good that we’re able to help so many people, but very unfortunate that we need to.”
Through Food First, undergraduate students in need are given one card per semester. Maxwell-Barillas said it also offered students free bagged breakfast — 1,200 passed out last year — and also provides a hot breakfast or dinner when it can.
Relying on donations, Food First is continuing to look for different ways to increase funding, using donations that come in to directly support students. In the beginning of the program, Brock would take non-perishable food donations but Wilder said the school does not have the infrastructure or capability to sustain the program and instead shifted to the gift card mode.
It also didn’t take into account other equity issues, such as dietary and religious restrictions and allergies. Gift cards also give students “more of a sense of autonomy and gets rid of that stigma about having to go to a food bank.”
“It’s really difficult for a lot of students to come to terms with the fact that they have to use those services and it’s a very vulnerable experience to be like ‘I can’t afford to eat’ or ‘I have to live off of ramen and I haven’t had a vegetable in six weeks,’” said Wilder.
Not all students are fortunate to be supported by their parents, and many others don’t have the ability to work as much as they need to keep up with the cost of living. And the shift from high school to higher education is the often the most challenging time.
“They don’t know how to save, they don’t know how to be smart with their money, how to pinch pennies, some people probably don’t even know that price matching is a thing,” said Maxwell-Barillas.
Graduate students who work 60 to 80 hours a week don’t have the ability to obtain external employment to subsidize their funding.
Wilder, a PhD student in biology, said it has become “impossible” for students to manage without external assistance.
“If a (graduate) student is to take off-campus employment, they risk losing that funding,” she said. “It’s just a rock and a hard place and food, unfortunately, is one of those things that people have to cut out because they can go hungry, but they can’t as easily go homeless and they need to stay in school because they’ve invested all this time and money, and if they don’t finish school, what do they have?”
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