Every Thursday, Claire Morrison and her volunteers cook a meal for St. Thomas University students. She asks international students to suggest recipes from back home so she can bring them a sense of “home away from home.”
On Oct. 26, around 10 students from all around the world gathered to share Morrison’s dishes. She made Frico, bread dough and Pete De Soeur — Nun’s Farts in English.
As STU’s campus minister, Morrison is responsible for students’ spiritual needs through a Catholic lens, but she also cares deeply about their access to nutritious food.
“We want anybody who’s hungry to be able to just come and eat.”
Since she started her position last year, she has been in charge of managing the on- campus food bank and weekly lunches, which were created to destigmatize this service by adding a social component.
“Our free meals are offered through the food bank, but we don’t necessarily advertise that all the time because there is a stigma associated with using the food bank.”
Besides the Thursday lunches, the food bank offers spiced Indian rice every Monday and, occasionally, cooking classes for students.
Many students use this time to enjoy home-cooked meals and chat amongst themselves, which to Morrison is “comforting.”
Having Southeast Asian descent, she relates to international students adapting to a different diet once they arrive in Canada.
“If you come from a place where you eat rice three times a day and you find yourself in a place where it’s like toast, bacon and eggs and stuff, it’s just totally foreign,” she said. “This is a nice way to just have a bowl of something comforting and familiar.”
While she was raised Catholic, she became an atheist at age 11. She recalls her mother making her life “a living hell” after finding out. Morrison rediscovered her faith during her undergrad after having her first real experience with death.
“I remember looking at [those with faith] and being like, ‘damn, I know it’s a lie. But right now I really wish I could believe in that lie,’” she said. “And that was the first big crack in my heart to let some light in.”
She started her studies at the University of Toronto but found herself needing some space to explore herself away from her family, so she moved to study at the University of Western Ontario, where she met a supportive group of chaplains.
During this time, she interacted with the Russia College for Women and experienced both immersion and adversity.
“It was odious in that it perpetuates a lot of the gender stereotypes that one would have serious problems with these days,” she said. “But it was staffed with nuns. It still had little resident nuns that lived on each floor and it was like having your own little granny in [residence].”
Morrison said she went from hating mass with her parents to having her heart melt by the music and community.
“When they sang, tears would start streaming and it was very embarrassing.”
Then, when she went to McGill to get her masters in neuroscience, she met a woman who worked for the campus ministry named Linda, who she described as “everyone’s mom.”
“My big pot that I serve soup out of on Thursdays is named Linda the Second, in honour of her,” laughed Morrison, mentioning she needed to put Linda – still with that day’s soup – back in her car amidst the interview.
Morrison met with previous campus minister Vivien Zelazny and helped her cook meals for fun. However, Zelazny eventually gave her a heads-up when she was leaving the position.
“She thought I should apply for it,” she said. “The idea of working in ministry was very appealing after working in the public school system, where it feels like you cannot really talk about God.”
Related: STU meets new campus minister
Morrison said she loves her job because every day she gets to feel appreciated by students. From getting thanked by students who feel homesick, to coordinating events to promote the food bank, she said she is grateful for what she does.
“It lets me just connect with people in the way that I love. One of the things I love about teaching in school is working with young people. And here I still get to do that but I don’t have to like read, which is great.”
With files from Shannon Munro
