More York students rely on-campus food bank

Melissa Sundardas
Contributor

In the face of high youth unemployment and the rising costs of tuition, food, and rent, the number of students who rely on York’s on-campus food bank has quadrupled in the last four years.

Niraj Maharaj, York Federation of Students’ (YFS) student rights and support services coordinator, confirms there are about 100 individual students who rely on Food4Thought—a member agency of the North York Harvest Food Bank (NYHFB) and the only food bank on campus—on a monthly basis, with about 300 unique visits a month. The busiest periods tend to be near the beginning and end of each semester.

“With […] OSAP amounts not really reflective of the living costs of students in the GTA, many students are having a difficult time purchasing basic food items,” says Maharaj.

Although the YFS advertises Food4Thought through York’s website and handbooks, campus offices, and routine postering, none of the 100 respondents of an Excalibur survey were aware that an on-campus food bank exists at York.

“Access to food should be a right, not a privilege,” wrote Sarah Anderson, acting director of communications for the Daily Bread Food Bank, in an email interview. “If there is a recognized need on a campus, it makes sense that a responsible reaction would be not just to provide food, but also to look at the root causes for student hunger and ways to alleviate those causes.”

Food4Thought receives small weekly donations from individuals
and large monthly donations by student clubs or faculty and staff organizations. Mike Friedman, agency relations manager at the NYHFB, says the agency delivers approximately 1,000 pounds of food to Food4Thought at York each month.

“We definitely are seeing more and more people,” says Amie Banks, development associate at NYHFB. “It’s unfortunate but with the second recession and the rising food costs, we’re just seeing more and more people come knocking on our doors.”

Banks says this has been a hard year at North York Harvest.

“Last year alone we raised 1.6 million pounds of food, and this year we wanted to raise it to 1.8 million,” she says. “But we’ve had to backtrack on our budget because we’re not going to hit that number, so we’re hoping to hit 1.7 million. […] It’s still an increase, but not the increase we’d been hoping for. […] We’re just encouraging people to continue to give so that we can continue to help others as well.”

For students who may be coming to York hungry because they’re trying to save money, Maharaj hopes they will take a few minutes to look into available on-campus resources.

“It is true that the administration provides very few resources for students in financial need,” she says, “but student-run organizations like the YFS have services like the food bank to ensure that no student has to go hungry.”