According to Canada’s food price report for 2023, food prices are set to increase by up to seven per cent across the country in the upcoming year.
This comes after three consecutive years of gradual price increases which have left students wondering how they can afford tuition as well as a warm meal.
Humber College’s student union, IGNITE, has been partnering with the University of Guelph-Humber’s student news organization GH360 since 2020 to try and provide relief to students who are dealing with food insecurity.
Meshanda Phillips, a student coordinator at IGNITE, said she felt very strongly that the college had to do something to help combat food insecurity.
“I have first-hand experience with food insecurity. I know how important it is to have something warm in your belly when you’re going to school,” Phillips said.
Food insecurity first became a serious subject of conversation at Humber when the college shut down in 2020 because of COVID-19.
Phillips remembers being worried students who relied on school food programs would inevitably run into complications.
According to Statistics Canada, currently, one in five people living in Canada are likely to rely on a food organization for food or meals.
IGNITE partnered with GH360 in 2020 to launch the Soup Bar on the Lakeshore and North campuses.
The program consisted of providing students who needed it with daily soups that they could pick up from campus and bring it home with them.
The various soups are made on campus by the culinary science department and are packaged in recyclable containers for pick up.
Phillips said it didn’t sit well with any of her IGNITE colleagues to stop at the soup bar once the campus opened again.
She felt that providing a program like the soup bar was a privilege and understood that campus opening up again didn’t mean that students stopped relying on the service.
With tuition prices increasing after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the lack of provincial support for students dealing with food insecurity, IGNITE has taken the program one step further.
The soup bar is now providing around 100 soups a week between both campuses.
Although the program shows great initiative from IGNITE in trying to support students, it’s still not enough.
Humber College is attended by 33,000 full-time students. Following the data provided by StatCan, there could be up to 6,600 students dealing with food insecurity.
The burden of providing food for all those students cannot be put solely on the shoulders of the culinary arts students.
However, the college may have a hard time justifying not providing more free meals while also increasing tuition further in January 2023.
Phillips also said she was concerned about the lack of affordable meal options on campus and that students needed to be able to have options.
With the extra burden of keeping up grades and paying tuition, students are left scrambling for options. No one should have to choose between paying rent and buying groceries.