New program helps alarming number of food-insecure students at UBC Okanagan

The campaign is a partnership between the students' union and four participating on-campus restaurants.

With the cost of food soaring these days, many are struggling with food insecurity.

That includes an alarming number of post-secondary students in the Okanagan, according to a recent survey done at the UBC Okanagan campus through the health department.

“That research focuses on food security and the results of that research say that around 42 per cent of undergraduate students are food insecure, or experienced some sort of food insecurity on campus,” said Lakshay Karnwal, the student’s union vice-president external.

“We don’t even necessarily have the data for graduate students…. The numbers could be even higher.”

Karnwal played an instrumental role in establishing the $5 smart meal program at the university to help students who are food insecure.

“A student who might not be able to pay for a meal, a student who might skip a meal because they’re not able to afford a meal,” Karnwal said.

The program launched at the start of the academic year to help students navigate the tough economic times.

“As far as what I know, we are the only, if not the very few universities in Canada who are doing a program and initiative like this,” Karnwal said. “We are really taking up that space of pioneering a campaign like this.”