What we did, what challenges we faced, and how we are evolving to meet demand in 2024-25

It has been a rollercoaster year at the Campus Food Bank. The information in this report is published to empower the community to advocate on our behalf with key information about our operations and challenges over the last year. We also share updates on ongoing governance work and plans for the next year of operations. If you have any questions about what you read here, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

We started September 2023 with uncertainty.

The 2022-23 school year was a startling shift in demand for the Campus Food Bank. We went from supporting a total of 2,600 food bank visits in 2021-22 to a total of 6,300 food bank visits in 2022-23: a stunning 142% increase in demand. Going into September 2023, we were uncertain of how much more demand to expect, as food inflation remained (and still remains) high and tuition rose again.

As a result of our increased demand, our expenses were also significantly higher than previous years. In 2021-22 we spent $23,700 on purchasing food to meet demand beyond food donations we received. In 2022-23, with the increase in demand, this number rose to $109,400, despite an increase in food donations from community. We were able to meet this increase in costs with more fundraising in the 2022-23 year: we nearly doubled our revenue from $263,000 in 2021-22 to $518,000 in 2022-23. This was achieved equally through increased individual donations and increased grant applications. We are endlessly grateful to everyone in the U of A community who supports us! (The best way is with a monthly donation!)

We experimented in evolving to meet client needs.

The 2022-23 school year stretched our physical space to the limit, too. By the end of the year, our wait time for an appointment had grown to three weeks. In an effort to increase the number of clients we could serve in one week, we added an extra block of time to our appointments schedule starting September 2023, increasing our shopping appointments by about 40 per week. This further increased our food costs, as well as staffing and volunteer needs.

How do we get food to our clients?

We send staff and volunteers three times per week to Edmonton’s Food Bank and once per month to the Food Banks Alberta warehouse in Leduc to pick up donated food. We also now purchase pallets of food bank staples through Food Banks Canada. (Thank you to the University of Alberta Bookstore for storing our food pallets this year!) Volunteers also regularly do pickups from Wholesale Club, Little Potato Company, and from donors across the city.

We get Sysco deliveries almost every day for produce and key staples like rice and pasta, as well as regular Costco deliveries for snacks and baby products. We purchase a lot of our meat, including halal meat, as it is rare that we receive donations of fresh proteins.

Every day, we put volunteers to work for two hours before we open to clients. Volunteers rebag bulk food, stock our grocery store, and set up the lists of what we have in stock. Most weekdays we are open for four hours of shopping appointments, with two blocks of four hours on Wednesdays. Volunteers welcome clients, provide a shopping list for their household size, support clients as they shop, and weigh their groceries at check-out.

Food distributed (May to April)

2021-22: 74,600 pounds
2022-23: 164,500 pounds
2023-24: 242,000 pounds

In September 2023, we also tweaked our staff roles to create a client engagement coordinator position with responsibility for supporting clients with resources and multimodal opportunities for direct feedback. In November 2023, we also created a net-new part-time role to support our growing administrative and client service needs, and this position further expanded to a full-time role as of May 1, 2024. We now have four full-time staff (executive director, programs manager, outreach/volunteer manager, and administrative coordinator) along with two student roles (client engagement coordinator, special projects coordinator). Just two years ago, we had two full-time staff and two student roles.

The 2022-23 school year showed us that we aren’t able to fit everyone who needs help into our space, so we took the last 12 months to explore options for other ways to create food access on campus. We expanded our breakfast program (funded by the Cinders Fund at the Edmonton Community Foundation) to Campus Saint-Jean and extended the program on North Campus through the spring/summer terms. We expanded a network of snack stations from a small pilot of three stations to 11 stations across North Campus, generously supported by an annual grant from the Association of Academic Staff of the University of Alberta (AASUA).

Further expanding food access on North Campus, we were thrilled to open the University of Alberta Community Pantry in January 2024 in collaboration with University partners. We worked with the University for almost a year to find an appropriate space to house a food pantry. The University selected a galleria space in Rutherford Library lobby and retrofitted it with new lighting, power, and ventilation, as well as a new wall for a ONEcard reader door. The glass walls of the space have been frosted for privacy, and wrap signage is coming soon. Within the pantry, there is shelving as well as a fridge and freezer. While the Campus Food Bank is managing the space for food safety and cleanliness, we are depending on the U of A community to fill the pantry. We have worked with a dozen groups across campus already who have adopted the pantry to fill it for a week, and we are seeking more groups to sign up. We are also encouraging all faculty and staff at North Campus to pick up extra groceries when they shop, as anyone with a ONEcard can drop off donations anytime Rutherford Library is open. Every item counts! There is no minimum quantity for food drop-offs.

We are ending the year in a precarious position.

We saw our highest ever demand, again, and spent more to meet it:

The 2023-24 school year was by far our busiest school year on record, although we are encouraged that the demand did not rise as much year-over-year. Our shopping appointments are currently booking up to six weeks out, double the wait time in September 2023. We have experimented all year with tactics to try to reduce wait times like increasing emergency appointment availability and piloting a text reminder system. We will continue to test approaches to help increase access, but we are unavoidably limited in how many people we can see in one week by our physical space capacity in SUB.

From September 2021 to August 2022 we supported 2,600 visits to the food bank.

From September 2022 to August 2023 we supported 6,300 visits to the food bank.
From September 2023 to April 2024 we supported 7,900 visits to the food bank; we are on track to exceed 11,000 visits by the end of August 2024.

We will conclude our 2024 fiscal year in a cash deficit. We have reserves set aside for just this eventuality and we are still in a solid financial position with significant savings. However, we are approaching the next year with caution because our revenue growth is limited when compared to our ballooning food costs.

In fiscal year 2022 we spent $23,700 on purchasing food to meet demand beyond food donations we received.
In fiscal year 2023 we spent $109,400 on food costs to meet demand.
In fiscal year 2024 we will spend over $190,000 on food costs to meet demand.

The last year has been a difficult mix of increased costs and limited options for revenue growth. CanadaHelps reports that 2023 giving rates were the lowest in recent history, as the cost of living crisis worsens. We are experiencing the same challenge in accessing grant funds as many in the charitable sector, and our organizational growth has meant we now don’t qualify for grants to help smaller charities that we previously could access.

We’re paying close attention and our resolve is strong.

The question that staff keep returning to is: where does this growth end? For many years, the Campus Food Bank had relatively consistent demand, but the situation is now evolving to be untenable.

September 2024 will mark our 30th year operating as a registered charity at the University of Alberta. For many years, our mission was, “Hunger for knowledge, not food.” And yet, it is clear that more people than ever are hungry for food and facing challenges in their studies or work because of it.

As a staff and board, we have been working hard to meet demand while also thinking about the implications of the last few years on our operations. To that end, we have a new mission, vision, and organizational values and will be looking for feedback over the next year. We are excited that our new mission includes reference to the systemic work of addressing food insecurity. We plan to keep our previous mission of “Hunger for knowledge, not food” as a tagline for the organization because it is so beloved.

Vision: Equitable food access across our campus community.

Mission: Championing immediate and systemic food accessibility at the U of A.

Values:

We explore new ways of doing things, persevere when faced with setbacks & challenges, and learn from all our actions.
We celebrate diversity, are accessible & welcoming to everyone, and everyone feels seen, heard and like a full member of our community.
Everyone has wisdom, so we work with others wherever & whenever we can.

Rather than set a strategic plan for the organization at this precarious juncture, we will be taking the next year as a Year of Breaking Barriers to better understand our work, the alternatives available to us, and the possibilities of food security work at University of Alberta into the future. Governance work over the spring and summer will also include a bylaw refresh for the organization.

We plan to report on this work at our fall AGM and engage our clients, volunteers, and the entire U of A community throughout the 2024-25 school year to determine our focus for the next three to five years. Some of the ideas we have percolating already include: more work to build community and fight isolation among our clients; possibly opening on the weekend; exploring options for expanding our physical footprint on campus; experimenting with more concerted advocacy work; and, improving internal processes to ensure organizational sustainability.

Because our expenses exceeded our revenue in our fiscal year 2023-24, we will be making some program changes to manage costs in the coming year. At this time we can announce that Campus Kitchens cooking workshops are paused for the next year as we contemplate tweaks to the program. There will be more announcements on program changes closer to the fall and at our October AGM.

We need your help more than ever before.

Food banks across the country are dealing with the same striking increase in demand that we are seeing at University of Alberta, but we have a secret weapon: you! Throughout the difficulties of the last few years, we have never felt alone in this community, and we are so grateful for that.

If you are looking for specific ways to help, we have ideas!

If you can help with any of these specific needs, please get in touch!

Food-safe bulk storage: we are currently storing pallets of bulk orders at the Bookstore. We are seeking additional food-safe storage space for a pallet or two somewhere near SUB so that we can increase our bulk ordering.
Other bulk storage: our space is full but we have some items that can be stored off-site if we can get more storage space. A storage closet or other small room that locks would be ideal.
Baby products donor: We are seeking a corporate partner to support our purchase and distribution of diapers and baby formula. There are about 250 children currently living in households we serve and these are high-cost items.
Halal meat donor or bulk purchase partner: Halal meats are among our highest food costs and we are keen to partner with a local butcher or other business that can provide discounts or free product.

Please stay tuned for another update going into the fall semester. We will also be announcing our AGM date later in the summer, which will happen sometime in October. Thank you for reading and for everything you do to support the CFB!

The story of our 2023-24 school year