Free breakfast offered to KPU students during ‘Nutrition Month’
The initiative aims to spread awareness and provide support for student food insecurity
One of the free breakfasts for KPU students held in the Richmond campus atrium. (Hope Lompe)
Students are receiving free breakfast at Kwantlen Polytechnic University campuses during March as part of KPU’s first “Nutrition Month,” an initiative to support students’ nutrition and well-being.
The initiative is part of the annual national “Nutrition Month,” which highlights healthy eating and the importance of proper nutrition. During this month, students can enjoy free breakfast weekdays at rotating KPU campuses and attend food-skill workshops to learn practical tips for budget grocery shopping, meal planning, and healthy eating from Megan Matthews, a registered dietitian, manager of Student Health Promotion at KPU, and one of the organizers for “Nutrition Month.”
The workshops, which sold out, include a cooking demonstration and a take-home bag with ingredients to make the meal at home. The popular workshop is attracting many different students who are eager to learn food skills for everyday life.
“There’s a wide range of students in the workshops, too, there’s students who love to cook, want to learn some new recipes, or there’s students that just moved away from home [and are] living on their own for the first time,” Matthews says. “So it was really cool to see a wide range of students and experiences in the workshops.”
The general student population is highly impacted by food insecurity. At KPU, 13 per cent of students say they used a food bank within the last three months, 36 per cent say they couldn’t afford to eat healthy meals, and 35 per cent ate less because they didn’t have enough money for food, the university’s student satisfaction survey found.
“In terms of post-secondary students, there’s a lot of changes going on at that time,” Matthews says. “For some students that might be living away from home for the first time, navigating cooking for [themselves], being on a budget.”
Initiatives like the free breakfast program provide a reliable meal source for students who are struggling with inflation and the increased cost of food.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea. When I first saw it I was like, ‘Thank you whoever thought [of this] … especially for breakfast,’” says first year biology student Yohani Weheragama.
“Personally, I’m starting to decide to eat some sort of breakfast because my brain does not work in classes otherwise. However, I know that a lot of my friends skip out on breakfast … because finances are too tight, they’re too busy.”
Resources are available to students who are facing food insecurity. The Kwantlen Student Association Food Bank gives out one food hamper every two weeks to eligible students. As part of “Nutrition Month,” $500,000 in funding has been made available for the “KPU Food Security Grant,” offering a minimum of $200 for eligible students. The grant can be applied for through KPU Online Self Service (OSS).
Student Health Promotion also launched a new website where students can discover support both on and off-campus, mapping out and listing a variety of food programs and services near KPU campuses.
“Our goal in our department is to provide students with tools and knowledge to take charge of their own health. I think this campaign is no exception to that,” Matthews says.
“We wanted to share information with students about how they can support their own food security. While this isn’t going to do anything to really address food insecurity, it’s going to give them some tools in their toolbox.”
