SU Elections 2022 Q&A: Campus Food Bank Plebiscite

In addition to electing new student representatives, the Students’ Union 2022 election will give students the opportunity to decide on renewing the Campus Food Bank’s dedicated fee unit (DFU).

The Campus Food Bank’s DFU is put towards services such as the Grocery Bus, the WECAN Food Basket, and Campus Kitchens, which work to combat food insecurity at the University of Alberta. The Campus Food Bank currently charges students a $1.07 DFU per winter and fall semester.

Representing the Campus Food Bank in this Q&A is Ethan Park, an after-degree history student.

The following interviews have been edited for brevity and clarity.

What is this plebiscite trying to accomplish?

Ethan Park: We’re not asking for any change in our current structure, we just want to keep going as a designated fee unit. We’re asking students to renew it as is, keeping the current fee the same and allowing us to continue providing what we think is a necessary service on campus.

For students who don’t know, what is the Campus Food Bank?

Park: The Campus Food Bank is a charitable organization that’s committed to fighting food insecurity on campus. The pithy way we put it is we think the university should be a place where you hunger for knowledge — not food. What that means is that we function as a basic food bank.

If readers don’t know what that is, that means we provide supplementary food hampers every two weeks to our clients. Those are just basic staples of perishable and non-perishable items to help them reduce grocery costs. [This includes] basic food items that you need to fill your pantry. Beyond that, we also run a bunch of programs that are in-depth promoting wider food security on campus, so it’s not just about if you can’t afford groceries right now and you’re really in a desperate spot.

We run programs to teach people how to cook, if this is your first time cooking, [if] you don’t know healthy recipes, [or if] you don’t know cheap recipes — we run programming to help out with that. We run a grocery bus that connects people on campus with different grocery stores so you’re not limited to just the ones that are within walking distance of campus. We are a distributor of low-cost grocery programs so there’s a couple of really good programs in the city, particularly WECAN Food Baskets, that help you get a bunch of groceries for a reduced price. We’re a depot for that so we help facilitate that process, [and] people can come to pick it up from us. In general, we’re just here to promote food security wherever we can on campus.

If this plebiscite passes, how much will students be paying and how was that cost determined?

Park: Right now it’s $1.07. It will be that, plus whatever their inflation calculation is, [which is] based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). We were originally a $1.00 fee unit but we’re index to inflation, so that’s determined by the Student’s Council [and] Students’ Union.

Will all students be paying this fee?

Park: It’s not for Augustana students, but students on campus will be paying it in the Fall and the Winter semesters, not over the Spring/Summer.

Why do you think students should care about the work being done by the Campus Food Bank?

Park: I think we’re a great example of directly supporting our community. Especially over the last two and half years we’ve been dealing with the pandemic — it’s been hard on everyone [and] students have suffered in a lot of very unique and complex ways. It’s been tough. Unfortunately, that’s borne out in our usage. We’re incredibly busy; we’ve been busier than ever over these past two years. I think we provided a valuable stock up for a lot of people.

I think we’ve been a service that a lot of people have had to rely on in the past and I think unfortunately in the future a lot of students will need this. If you’re students who maybe don’t need to access our supplementary hampers, I think there is a lot for you at the Campus Food Bank. We run, like I said, cooking classes, grocery buses, we’ve just launched a program where we are doing weekly free breakfasts in SUB. Were trying to be a promotor of food security for everyone — not just [being] the emergency fight against the worst parts of it.

I think there’s great value in it, I think if you believe in supporting your fellow students your fellow U of A community members it’s a wonderful thing to support.

–With files from Mitchell Pawluk