Student-led program helped fight food insecurity at VIU

Vaisanen said that since the start of the program, they have hosted 13 meals that served over 1,300 students. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

It has been a busy year for Leah Vaisanen as she finishes up her studies while running a program tackling food insecurity on campus.

Vaisanen first told CHLY about her idea to start a free hot lunch program at Vancouver Island University (VIU) last summer. She felt that as the cost of living was rising, it was becoming harder for students to afford basic needs such as food and hygiene.

She teamed up with political science professor Lauren Touchant to start the No Hunger at VIU program. The pair hosted bi-weekly hot free meals and created care packages with food and hygiene items 

CHLY met with Vaisanen and Touchant at the final No Hunger at VIU meal for the school year to talk to them about the program.

Vaisanen said they have hosted 13 meals and served over 1,300 students. They have also handed out more than 600 care packages for students.

“So you can tell that it is a huge problem on our campus, that students are struggling, especially food insecurity. With how expensive things are nowadays, like going to the grocery store, even I start looking at sale prices now because everything is so expensive,” Vaisanen said. “I'm like, ‘how are the students who are needing these things affording these items?”

Along with giving out free meals, Vaisanen said she has also found that the meals have grown a community of students who come each week, get a free meal, and meet new people.

“I felt like the campus was kind of disconnected and just very quiet, and I'm like, ‘we gotta get some spark going and some life going,’ and it's been so receptive,” Vaisanen said

Already a full-time student, working a full-time job, and taking on the role as the Indigenous Students’ Representative for the university’s students’ union, Vaisanen was able to manage running the program because she knew she was making a difference on campus.

“I just want to help people and help students any way that I can because I know I can provide for myself, but other students can't,” she said. “So it's just like, I don't even have to think about it. It’s just been so awesome to see these happy faces and help the students that are in need.”

When Touchant started realizing that more and more students were coming to her class hungry, she originally had the idea for care packages for students with food and hygiene products.

“I met a lot of students in the classroom who were not I suspected, eating properly,” Touchant said. “I could hear stomach rumbling, and I had a few students actually crying in my office, pretty much telling me that they didn't have enough money to purchase a meal.”

Touchant said she then met with Vaisanen, and the two formed the idea for No Hunger at VIU, starting the bi-weekly free meals and the free care package they have ready to hand out every day.

The care packages vary each week but can contain pasta, pasta sauce, rice, can tuna, fruit, granola bars, oatmeal, a sweet treat, and hygiene products such as toothpaste and a toothbrush.

Touchant said that while she oversees the program, everything else is run by student volunteers.

She said they started the program with their own personal funds and donations from the food bank, but she was able to develop more connections on campus and get funding through the Office of Student Affairs.

They were given $800 a month to use for the care packages and some of the food for the meals. Everything else they had to fund themselves.

“So we try to be as creative as possible. We have received a lot of financial donations from colleagues on campus, donations even from some city councilors and from residents who have heard of the project,” she said. “We've been, since then, actually funding everything 100 per cent.”

Touchant said that students going hungry is not a new thing, but in the last couple of years, things have changed, with a lot more pressure on students to be able to afford basic needs.

“We have a lot of students actually working sometimes two jobs just to be able to afford food and housing. Sometimes, they are just able to cover housing here in Nanaimo, and they don't have much left at the end of the month,” she said. “We know that because at the beginning of the month, we see that the packages don't go as fast; they can sometimes stay for a couple of days in the boxes. But in the last two weeks of the month, we actually see the number of packages being picked up by students increase.”

Touchnat said that while the No Hunger at VIU program will be on pause during the summertime, she is already planning on overseeing the student-led program as new student volunteers have already stepped up and said they will continue making sure no students have to go hungry.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.