Spinach Collective would provide a bi-weekly free dinner service on Concordia’s downtown campus. In collaboration with student associations, the Concordia student union and fee-levy groups, we hope to create a space where students can come together and share a healthy meal.
Food insecurity is a pressing issue in universities across Canada. Prior to COVID-19, two out of five post-secondary students in Canada experienced food insecurity, with this issue worsening in the post-pandemic world (Meal Exchange, 2021). In 2023, Concordia’s Student Food Insecurity Report revealed that 55% of respondents cannot afford healthy and balanced meals (Concordia, 2023). The report also found that 67% of students experience food insecurity, with 22% facing a severe degree of food insecurity (Concordia, 2023).
Our initiative seeks to alleviate student food insecurity by offering students nutritious and free food on a reliable and predictable schedule. Existing free food programs, such as the People’s Potato, have experienced great success not only in providing free nutritious meals, but in their longevity. The People’s Potato has been around Concordia for almost a decade. Our dream is to jump-start a project that follows the model of the People’s Potato but focused on providing dinners, not lunches. We have been building our project plans around institutional knowledge and guidance from meetings with the People’s Potato.
By pairing the free dinners with lecturers and activities, we also hope that the dinner service will foster a space for community building and student organizing to flourish. In collaboration with student association we hope to offer speaker series and workshops that will encourage students to mingle with their peers and forge connections. Speakers could include university professors, engaged student activists and outstanding community members covering a wide range of stimulating topics. The activities and speaker series we will organize will center advocacy and social justice topics, helping students to think critically about how they can engage in student organizing and make positive change on campus.
Meals will be prepared by our team of three people, one with 6 years of experience in kitchens, Allegra, and with the help of a volunteer kitchen run in the People’s Potato kitchen. This volunteering opportunity will give students the opportunity to participate in directly supporting their community and potentially gather volunteer credits towards their degree. We will partially source our produce from local and student led farms in order to highlight sustainability practitioners to students and connect them to other on campus initiatives. One of our team members, Mia, is a co-founder of the Atwater Community Pantry and has previously had experience organizing volunteers for that project, and has also worked closely with student farms through her work with the Concordia Food Coalition.
YEARS FUNDED
2025
AMOUNT ALLOCATED
$5000