Food voucher program replaces BU students’ union food bank

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This article was published 10/12/2022 (1093 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The president of the Brandon University Students’ Union says replacing its food bank with a food voucher program has been a hit among users.

In September, the union discontinued the practice of collecting and distributing food items in favour of handing out $15 vouchers to local grocery stores every two weeks.

According to union president and fourth-year nursing student Olufunke Sophia Adeleye, there were a few factors that made the food bank program less than ideal.

“The food bank was heavily focused on whatever people donated,” Adeleye said. “Sometimes we ended up getting expired products. Obviously, we can’t give that out. If we were a licensed or registered food bank like Samaritan House, they have up to a six-month window where they can still hand out food products even if they have expired.”

Sometimes people using the program received food items they couldn’t use because of allergies.

Other times, international students would receive food items they were unfamiliar with and didn’t know how to cook.

“In the end, the amount of food they actually could take was so minimal they might as well have not shown up,” Adeleye said.

While students in need of food are still referred to Samaritan House Ministries’ food bank and hamper program, Adeleye said receiving the vouchers allows recipients to exercise some agency and choose grocery items for themselves.

Though the student union isn’t a charitable organization, it’s partnering with the BU Foundation, which is to collect some donations though it and provide donors with tax receipts.

So far, TD Bank and Fusion Credit Union have provided the union with some donations toward the program. Heritage Co-op has donated some funds to the program and others like it by selling empty food pails and sending proceeds to BUSU.

Superstore and Giant Tiger have also donated gift cards to the program.

When the program launched in September, Adeleye said, there were 50 students taking advantage of it. As of the last time vouchers were handed out, approximately 200 students came to pick them up.

In one case, she said a student told her that receiving a voucher made it possible for a student to purchase a turkey for themselves and their child for Christmas with only a modest additional out-of-pocket expense.

The increasing demand from students for these vouchers is just one sign of how unaffordability is affecting students right now. Adeleye said it was expected for prices to increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not by this much.

Another financial concern is tuition, especially for international students who have to pay more than three times what domestic students pay and who are no longer provided service under Manitoba Health.

According to Adeleye, BU doesn’t have bursaries for international students that could help them deal with costs, which was brought up in a recent meeting between the student union and university administration.

The union itself has some $500 bursaries it provides to a few students to help with costs as well.

Since 2016, a program called Green Futures BU has used garden beds on campus to grow produce for the community.

According to co-ordinator and sociology professor Serena Petrella, the harvested produce was distributed to the food banks at both BUSU and Samaritan House.

Now that the food bank has wrapped up operations, those veggies will go toward Samaritan House — minus some reserved for the annual year-end harvest celebration.

“We organize blitzes — we like to call them ‘work bees’ — every week or second week from spring all the way to September,” Petrella said.

“We basically make a call and students, staff and faculty all come out together and we work for a couple of hours in the garden turning soil, putting in soil amendment or planting seeds then watering and harvesting together.”

Not only does it create some tasty results at the end, but it also provides people with an opportunity to give back to the community and do some socializing.

Last year, Petrella said, the garden grew 273 kilograms of food to Samaritan House. Though that number is a bit inflated by larger products like pumpkins, Petrella said it’s surprising how much food can grow on such a small plot of land.

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