Student hunger can often be an invisible problem. At StFX, the senior class wants to do something to help. On StFX Day, December 3rd, members of the Class of 2021 announced the establishment of their senior class gift, the ‘Food Security Fund from ’21.’
Senior class co-presidents Allison Hancock and Sean De van der schueren and class development officer Thea Hart say the fund is intended to support students experiencing hunger and other hardships who require emergency resources to meet their immediate needs.
Students this year are in an increasingly vulnerable position due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they say. Many employment opportunities, both in the summer and during the school year have diminished and have left students scrambling to afford tuition, books, and rent. In some instances, students are left struggling to afford necessities such as food. While this fund was created during the COVID-19 pandemic where the emergency needs of students are high, the Class of 2021 recognizes there will always be a need to help students who are struggling in future years.
Ms. Hancock, a fourth year student from Toronto, ON completing a joint honours degree in math and economics, says StFX’s Financial Aid Office approached the Development Office with stories of students coming forward because they are having trouble financing many things, including where to find their next meal. “As the pandemic is very prevalent in our year, affecting many jobs this summer (and there’s still ongoing impacts), we wanted to create a project that could help in response to these hardships,” she says.
“However, we also wanted to create something that would live past the pandemic. Student hunger is a problem that is much more common than we think, and the pandemic merely highlighted this.”
Ms. Hancock says at their Senior Class Poutine Bar in early November they asked senior students about ideas for this project.
While they received a variety of responses, there was a commonality of food scarcity. This feedback prompted them to proceed with the direction of the class gift.
REMOVE ALL BARRIERS
Ms. Hart, a fourth year development studies and women's and gender studies student from Bedford, NS, says after hearing about the experiences of students struggling with hunger, they recognized the way they supported them would have to address all possible barriers that prevent students from fully benefitting from the program.
“We recognized that for a student who hasn't eaten for several days, grocery shopping would be a huge task. Therefore, we decided that it was important that we give students who reached out for help a meal hall ticket to address that immediate need for food.”
Ms. Hart says StFX Financial Aid Officer Mary Fisher-MacDonnell had mentioned to them that a meal hall ticket also gives students a chance to feel connected to their peers in a way that they would normally not be able to afford by being able to participate in meal hall.
“The second part that we decided was that the financial aid given would be in the form of a grocery store gift card,” she says. “By using a gift card, it removes the barriers that come with applying to bursaries and that comes with managing funds. When a student needs the help, it would be on hand. Additionally, we wanted to consider issues of transportation by including taxi chits from the grocery store so that students wouldn't have to worry about time constraints, as well as help to alleviate any physical barriers to accessing a grocery store as we expect that a far walk and hauling groceries would be especially difficult if you haven't eaten.
“The last component of the project that we wanted to recognize is that not all students reach out to the Financial Aid office when they're in a crisis. In saying that, we decided that it was important for there to be several points of access where these resources would be in the hands of the people who students may alternatively reach out to, may it be the folks working in the Diversity Engagement Centre, or the Peer Support Office, we hope that we can make this program as accessible as possible,” Ms. Hart says.
She says all these things are important because they want this program to make as significant of impact as possible on current and future Xaverians. “We hope that it will help students be able to continue their studies, to take care of themselves, and be able to feel more a part of the StFX community as we have learned while working on this project that student hunger is an invisible issue that can exclude those who it effects.”
Ms. Hancock says they hope the senior class gift will help enhance existing services on campus while offering more immediate and emergency needs. “We hope it will provide students more support in their time at X, and amidst all the other worries of being students that we already carry, help to take something off their plates. Being confident in the source of one’s next meal should not be a luxury, and we hope this project will help further confirm this at X.”
The Senior Class Gift has already received a lead contribution of $4,500 from the J&W Murphy Foundation, located outside of Halifax, NS. “We have been supporting universities across the province since before the pandemic began. Now that we’ve all settled into this new reality, it was not a hard decision to say yes to the partnership of universities request to turn our attention to student hunger," the foundation says.
Additionally, proceeds from X-Ring sales from the StFX Store will be donated to the fund and StFX Chancellor John Peacock has pledged to match every dollar donated by students to a maximum of $5,000.
Anyone wanting to support the fund, can do so at www.stfx.ca/classof2021
