Food security coordinator program launches at STU, recovers wasted food from events
- Brianna Lyttle
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
A pilot food security initiative has begun at St. Thomas University, in collaboration between the Campus Ministry, the STU Food Bank, and Sustainability Services.
The program involves a designated student food security coordinator who manages volunteers to recover leftover food from Aramark events to be safely stored and frozen. This food is kept in a standing refrigerator and freezer in the student food bank for those in need.
Claire Morrison, campus minister at STU, said that the idea for the program was sparked in a conversation with sustainability coordinator Lauren MacDonald, in which they lamented the food waste on campus from catering events.
Morrison said that she had previously received emails from faculty and event organizers encouraging her to recover leftover food, but with no official system in place, it was an ineffective process. Trays of prepared food were poured into the garbage.
“By law, they cannot serve it because it's been at room temperature for longer than they can take back into the kitchen … but that doesn't change the fact that there are students who would come and eat that food if it sat on the table for another 15 minutes. So if within that window, we stick it in the freezer, then it's being saved and students can just help themselves,” said Morrison.
Morrison and MacDonald then decided to begin work on developing an official food recovery protocol, securing funding from NB Liquor for a standing freezer to store recovered food.
However, the only missing piece to the puzzle was a staff member dedicated to taking the time to continue to develop and enforce the new protocol while coordinating volunteers to do so.
“What I was looking for was somebody who had really strong communication skills. I needed somebody who is very reliable and good with working with schedules … this is much more than just the average student job. It is a leadership, management position,” said Morisson.
Bernarda Delgado, a third-year student at STU, was drawn to the position since she has worked with campus ministry.
“If I'm not able to advocate for someone to be able to eat properly, how am I going to be able to advocate for someone to live properly?”
“Food is one of the best ways you can connect with human beings. It's what brings us together and being able to provide food for people, food that would have otherwise gone to the trash bins, is of the utmost importance to me,” she said.
Delgado said she appreciates the leadership experience she has gained from the role, as well as the opportunity to give back to her community.
Her work so far has largely involved the establishment of protocol for safe food handling and storage, as well as coordinating and training volunteers to assist in the program.
There have been challenges in coordinating with Aramark and expanding the small crew of volunteers, but “nothing that hasn’t been overcome.”
Already, the program has recovered full refrigerators of food that would otherwise have gone to the dumpster.
Morrison’s goal for the program is to expand food recovery efforts to leftover meal hall food, already storing leftovers from the weekly campus ministry community lunch.
“I think that if we were able to recover both food from the catered events and from the meal hall, we would have no food insecurity on campus," she said.
"If that food was made available to students, there would be no caloric deficit for students to be able to continue their studies with the food that we're recovering.”
She noted that due to food safety procedures, there would be a limitation in that a lot of recovered food would be desserts.
“We can't recover things that would be considered a healthy meal, necessarily, but we'll start with what we have and then once we have a good system in place, then we'll be in a position to be able to take proper, healthy food.”
Delgado highlighted the importance of letting students know that the student food bank is always there to support them.
“Food is the most basic necessity and if you're ever in need, please feel free to reach out, because we've got you … we don't want you to just be able to eat, we want you to enjoy eating, for it to be a good experience and not something you're dreading.”