Support the CFB in our GSA Referendum!
Background: GSA & CFB
The Graduate Students’ Association founded the Campus Food Bank in 1991 with a small food drive to support struggling graduate students during a recession. In the 30+ years since, graduate students have always been a significant contingent of the clients we support.
As a nod to our shared history, we always have a representative from the GSA executive on our board, typically the VP of Student Services. The CFB has also been working with the GSA to provide more food support outside of the Student Union Building. This work has led to the opening of a food pantry in Rutherford Library this January, and we are also exploring options for a free breakfast program on the east side of campus. Graduate students can also now access CFB Snack Stations at two locations in HUB and one in the Telus International Centre.
Grad student usage of Campus Food Bank
Consistently, graduate students make up about 70 percent of the people Campus Food Bank serves.
A separate but overlapping 70 percent of our clients are international students. As a result, we support many families including over 200 children currently.
You can read all about our client demographics in our most recent client survey.
Why a referendum now?
Since 2020, our demand has skyrocketed, which has forced us to look at new avenues for consistent, dependable monetary support. Just three years ago, we were mostly able to meet demand through food drives, and didn’t have to purchase much food for the Campus Food Bank to be able to serve everyone who needed support. In the last 12 months, the CFB spent more than $120,000 on food to meet demand. This is a new and startling expense made worse by grocery inflation in the last few years, and has led to a significant increase in our operating budget.
CFB Budget Increases
For many years, graduate students have supported the CFB through an annual grant via the GSA operating budget to the CFB. However, GSA grant support has increased 80% since 2020 while our budget has increased 181%. Also, undergraduate students support the CFB with a nominal fee when they pay their tuition each semester, and it makes sense that graduate students, who make up 70% of CFB clients, should do the same. We love the symbolism of every UofA student paying a small amount toward the food bank at the beginning of their semester, so that it is not just the CFB supporting students but also students supporting each other.
If our referendum is approved, the current CFB grant support via the GSA operating budget would end. This fee would replace and augment historical GSA support.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Haseeb Arshad, Bishoi Aziz, Lewie Moodley, Sophie Shi, and the entire GSA board and staff for all of their encouragement, passion, and commitment to keeping the Campus Food Bank not just operational but also vibrant and inclusive.
Proposed referendum question
Do you support an $8 fee per student per year to fund Campus Food Bank (CFB)?
Fee would go into effect in Fall 2024. This will be a non-opt-out fee.
The CFB provides supplementary groceries and five other food access and food education programs at UofA. Consistently, 70% of CFB clients are graduate students. The CFB has experienced a full doubling in demand in just two years. They need consistent core support to ensure continuity of services.
All graduate students will be assessed $3 during each of the Fall/Winter semesters and $1 during each of the Spring/Summer semesters.
Campus Saint Jean and off-campus graduate students will be included in the fee assessment. Augustana will not be included.
The fee will be adjusted annually, indexed to CPI (Bank of Canada), and will be taken to the graduate student body for reapproval every three years.
The current fee will conclude April 30, 2027.
How will the money be spent?
If the referendum question passes, the GSA will collect fees of approximately $70,000 (~ 9,000 graduate students at $8 each). Currently we are spending about twice this amount on food purchasing per year, so GSA fees collected would go directly to our food purchasing budget. We are trying to prioritize the purchase of fresh meat (especially halal meat) and fresh produce (especially a cultural variety of locally grown fruit and vegetables) but these items are the most expensive to buy and are rare in free food bank supply chains. Consistent and dependable annual support from graduate students can help us to plan for bulk purchasing and other savings opportunities related to purchasing meat, produce, and culturally varied groceries.
A note on oversight and reporting
The Campus Food Bank has operated as a registered Canadian charity since 1994. Our books are audited annually by external auditors (2023 audited statements) and we submit annual oversight reporting to the Canada Revenue Agency.
Similar to our fee reporting structure with the Students’ Union, the CFB would attend GSA Council annually to report on our work and our spending, update Council on our latest numbers and trends, and take questions from councilors. This includes submitting an annual report with audited financial statements (2023 Annual Report).
Additionally, the GSA’s VP Student Services sits on the Campus Food Bank board and has access to our strategic documents, budgeting, and other aspects of operations that can indicate organizational health.
More about the Campus Food Bank
The Campus Food Bank (CFB) is the oldest food bank on a university campus in Canada. We served our first student clients in 1991 and became a registered Canadian charity with an independent board of directors in 1994. For more than 30 years now, we have provided supplementary food access and education to the U of A community.
Vision
Hunger for knowledge, not food.
Mission
Work and advocate for a UofA where everyone has access to food and food education.
Staff
Executive Director - Erin O’Neil
Outreach Manager - Caitlin Chyczij
Programs Manager - Madi Corry
Client Engagement Coordinator (part-time) - Priya Patel
Digital Engagement Coordinator (part-time) - Rhea Aery
Administrative Coordinator (part-time) - Jaysin Masse
Volunteers
The Campus Food Bank is supported by more than 130 volunteers each year. Volunteers run many of our programs and sit on volunteer committees to contribute to the strategic work of the CFB. Volunteers are primarily students but we also have seniors and retired alumni, university staff, and community members.
Governance
The food bank is governed by a volunteer board of directors. Our bylaws require that the board includes seven to 15 individuals, including: one SU representative (VP SL), one GSA representative (VP SS), and one volunteer representative.
How is the CFB funded?
The food bank became a Designated Fee Unit of the University of Alberta Students’ Union in 2017. Undergraduate students pay $1 per semester, indexed to inflation.
The Graduate Students’ Association provides a lump sum grant every year and supplemented that with additional funding in 2022-23 out of their budget surplus.
The CFB has received recent grants from: Food Banks Canada, Peavey Industries, Edmonton Community Foundation, City of Edmonton, Community Service Learning Small Grant Fund and CSL Pathways Program, Canada Summer Jobs, Realtors Community Foundation, Venture for Canada, Heroes for Health, the SU’s Green Fund, and several private foundations supporting food security work.
As a registered charity, the Campus Food Bank also receives donations and issues tax receipts. While individual fundraising has fluctuated significantly in the CFB’s history, this year has brought record-breaking support from the community.
Programs
Our supplementary grocery program can be accessed every two weeks by students, staff, and new grads. Our store includes a range of perishable and non-perishable foods and the amount of food clients can take scales by family size. We also offer toiletries, diapers, formula, and period products.
Our Community Pantry is now operating in Rutherford Library and is accessible to anyone with a ONEcard anytime the Library building is open. All U of A community members are welcome to donate or pick up food at this location.
We offer Campus Kitchen cooking workshops during the school year led by student volunteers. In 2023-24, these take place in the AgFor teaching kitchen.
Every Wednesday morning at 8:30am, we serve free breakfast in SUB across from SUBmart and at Campus Saint-Jean in the Grand Salon.
The grocery bus service we offer takes students to low-cost and specialty grocery stores farther afield from North campus every weekend, including Superstore, Wal-Mart, T&T Superstore, Goodwill, and many more stores in the area. We expanded this service to Campus Saint-Jean this fall.
We operate a network of CFB Snack Stations across campus to provide free healthy snacks in high student traffic areas like lecture halls and study spaces. Current locations include: University Health Centre, Chaplains Centre, APIRG, and several faculty-level student service centres.
The CFB is also a WECAN Food Basket Society depot. WECAN is a separate non-profit in the city that offers low-cost food baskets.
Questions or concerns?
Please don’t hesitate to contact the CFB with any questions!
General info or client support: info@campusfoodbank.com.
For specific questions regarding the GSA referendum, contact Erin O’Neil, executive director, ed@campusfoodbank.com.
