CFB conducts community consultations to inform programming adjustments

Between November 2024 and February 2025, the University of Alberta Campus Food Bank (CFB) is conducting community consultations to “decide the future of CFB operations and programming.” These community consultations will be conducted with U of A community members to address and find a solution for the 600 per cent increase in the CFB’s demand over the past five years. 

“In the last five years, we’ve gone from serving less than 200 visits per month and now we’re up [to] over 1,100 every month,” Erin O’Neil said. O’Neil is the executive director of the CFB. 

According to O’Neil, the CFB has had to significantly increase its spending and fundraising over the last three years to meet demand. Many other food banks in Canada were not able to scale to meet demand, she said. 

“Now going into our third year of way higher demand, we’re realizing that nothing is going to get better. So we really need to pivot — to be focusing more on the root causes of campus hunger,” O’Neil said. 

“I don’t anticipate that life will get easier for students from an affordability perspective,” O’Neil says

The CFB has been using its savings as an emergency fund to meet demand, according to O’Neil. “At one point we had $500,000 in savings. Now we’re closer to around $200,000 because we’ve been using that cushion to meet our demand,” she said. 

At this rate, the CFB will have to significantly reduce spending and food purchasing, O’Neil said.

“That would mean empty shelves, reducing the number of times people can access us, or putting some sort of qualification in place, like only supporting people with families,” she said. 

O’Neil said that she expects demand for the CFB to continue to remain unsustainably high. “I don’t anticipate that life will get easier for students from an affordability perspective, unless there are significant policies that are put in place to help with affordability.” 

The CFB is hoping to do more advocacy and partner with other food advocacy organizations in the country, O’Neil said.

According to O’Neil, the CFB is focusing on a client-centred perspective moving forward. “We’re doing private consultations with a number of student groups who work with students who are at a higher risk of food insecurity,” she said. 

“The goal is to get some concrete data on how people are experiencing food access on campus. And to start building more meaningful relationships with people out there who care about food on campus.” 

The community consultations are focused on students, as students make up the majority of CFB clients, but are open to anybody, O’Neil said.

”We’ll be trying to fit client and community input into our mission,” O’Neil says

In addition to the private consultations, the CFB will also be hosting consultations in conjunction with various student groups. This includes The Landing, the Indigenous Students’ Union (ISU), and the U of A Black Students’ Association (BSA). 

“I’m really optimistic that we’ll get some great insights there and at least start a relationship or continue our relationship with those groups,” O’Neil said. 

The goal of the consultations is to create more concrete options for new programming. Consultations in January and February will focus on the financial support of alumni, donors, and other supporters of the CFB, O’Neil said.

According to O’Neil, the CFB’s board will begin creating a new strategic planning process for the organization in late February 2025. “We’ll be trying to fit client and community input into our mission, making sure that we’re meeting our mission with these new ideas.” 

The CFB is also looking into new areas of programming, such as snack stations, based on an asynchronous survey. Its breakfast program, however, is not as popular and may be something to adjust in the future, according to O’Neil. 

O’Neil added that the CFB is focusing on tweaking programming, as opposed to completely getting rid of anything. Additionally, any changes made to programming will be based on the client and community input, according to O’Neil. 

The U of A community can expect an announcement regarding how the consultations have influenced the CFB’s strategy and programming in September 2025.