First-year student Andrew Nice doesn’t just worry about his grades — but where his next meal comes from too.
“When my groceries first got drastically low, I found myself eating three peanut butter sandwiches a day and dry cereal. I started to get sick and had to get something else to eat.”
Halfway through first semester, Nice used all the money on his meal card and started buying his own groceries. His wallet ran dry and pretty soon, he was visiting the food bank everyday.
“After a few weeks of it, I realized how expensive they [groceries] are and how quick they go, and I couldn’t keep up.”
Nice isn’t alone.
The number of students using the Fredericton Food Bank has doubled since 2007. This is part of a growing trend of people relying on food banks to put supper on the table.
“Every year there seems to be more [people] and the number of students seems to stay concurrent with that,” said food bank distribution manager Chris Fougere.
But he said students aren’t the only ones finding it hard to make ends meet.
“In this day and age, it’s across the board. A lot of people that would never have to come to the food bank [now] have to.”
Fougere said people are in a losing battle against the rising cost of living.
“In a lot of cases, rent goes up, utilities go up, but sources of income don’t go up to keep pace with the increases.”
The Fredericton Food Bank provides not only food, but clothing, hygienic items as well as household and school supplies for those who need it.
Last year, they helped an average of 800 families per month.
Fougere said the price of basic food supplies are quickly exceeding some people’s budgets.
“It’s the staples – it’s flour, it’s milk, it’s eggs.”
The Fredericton Food Bank isn’t the only one feeling the pinch.
Campus minister Janice Ryan oversees the campus food bank at St. Thomas and said empty shelves are a sign that more students are using it than in previous years.
“You may go out and purchase a couple hundred dollars worth of food and have nothing left after a weekend.”
The food bank relies heavily on donations to stock their shelves. Trick-or-Eat, where students go door-to-door on Halloween for non-perishable food items instead of candy, usually brings in enough food to last over three months. But this year, it was gone in three weeks.
On top of the economic downturn, students are even more vulnerable to poverty, because of high tuition costs, debt and fluctuating incomes.
St. Thomas University students’ union vice-president education Craig Mazerolle said students often feel guilty about turning to food banks and don’t want to talk about it.
“They feel a lot of shame, because they’re told, ‘You’re a student and you’re in a really privileged position.’
“But at the same time, when they do fall on these very tough economic times, they’re real.”
Mazerolle said this phenomenon isn’t new and that rising tuition costs and cuts to federal government funding in the mid-1990s has led to this financial strain on students.
“Student poverty has become a real issue in the last 10 to 20 years.”
The STU food bank is located behind the chapel in George Martin Hall and the Fredericton food bank is on 860 Grandame St. Both are always open to food or monetary donations.
