STORY BY GREG LONGLEY AND ADAM BUCK
PICTURES BY GREG LONGLEY
The Sheridan Student Union (SSU) is nipping hunger in the bud on campus.
As students gear up for another school year, members of the SSU are reaching out to lend a helping hand and spread awareness of the many services they offer, including the emergency food resource.
Mickey Maunes, an SSU marketing team member and second-year General Arts and Science student, has been out all week in the B-Wing providing students with pamphlets of all the latest news and information, and is quickly becoming a familiar face on Trafalgar Campus.
“We are giving out student handbooks for the school year,” Maunes said Wednesday. “And we also provide all of our services, such as Places4Students and emergency food resources, who work for people running low on grocery money.”
Emergency food resource is an important endeavour to the student union, for its potential benefits to students.
“Students could utilize it, but haven’t because they didn’t know about it.”
It’s an all-encompassing program providing students in need with affordable food recipes and a variety of free non-perishable food items, bundled in a reusable grocery bag. And the process is simple. A student can present a OneCard and fill out a form at the student union office at his/her respective campus, and the food service will be provided.
There are a range of options, including vegetarian and non-vegetarian, single packs, family packs and one for single students with young children. They offer premade and customized bags, according to the individual student’s needs, and keeps to the Canada Health Food Guide.
The service is largely donation-based, and has been around for years, but it’s still something that students seemingly are not aware of.
“We know we didn’t do as good of a job last year promoting it,” admitted Jenna Pulver, Student Union president. “Students could utilize it, but haven’t because they didn’t know about it.”
The real focus is on campaigning and promotional events.
“We do purchase canned goods ourselves, but we will have food drive campaigns and go out into the community and collect food items as well,” said Gail Knowles, the Trafalgar SU finance co-ordinator.
The campaign that gets the biggest contributions is the Welcome Back Breakfast, an event for Sheridan faculty and staff to meet and ring in the fall term. And while it’s not required, it has become common practice to bring food or money donations for the emergency food resource, and that has really made the difference.
“It was the faculty and staff who really kept it going,” Pulver said.
The student unions on each campus do have a $75/month budget set aside to restock the bins if needed, but it’s generally as a last resort.
“We’d prefer it to be stocked on a donation base,” Pulver added.
With that in mind, this initiative has undergone changes to make it more accessible to students.
“It went from being called the food bank to the emergency food resource, because we do much more than just non-perishable goods,” she said. “Offering cheap food recipes is in the works, if we can’t offer them something they need. We’re also working with other food resources in our community off-campus, if our food bank is not sufficient for them.”
The service has also grown beyond food products to include hygienic items, such as soap, razors and baby diapers, all donated by Shoppers Drug Mart.
The newest element of the food resource, the affordable recipes under $5, is a way to further engage students in the endeavour.
From Sept. 16 to Sept. 30, students can submit their own favourite recipes to The Wire. The submissions will be voted on, and the four best recipes will be displayed on the website. Each winner will also receive a $25 gift card from Walmart.
During the entire month of September, the SSU will devote much time in the B-Wing next to the Tim Hortons, connecting with students and promoting the many other services they offer.
And for first-years still adjusting to college life, Maunes suggests pub nights as the best way to get acquainted with Sheridan and its student union.
“[It] especially benefits them to give them some culture to adapt to life in the college, especially through our Sheridan Student Union,” Maunes said. “Because what we do is . . . engage them, inform them and empower them.”