By: Neda Pirouzmand
On March 18, Bridges Café unveiled its new “Cards for Humanity” student program.
“Cards” refer to one dollar donations that students can make at checkout in the café. Each donation will go towards a future student’s purchase.
There is a one hundred dollar cap on donations so that funds do not accumulate.
Chris Roberts, director of McMaster Hospitality Services, described the program as user-friendly.
“It’s quite simple. Donate a dollar when you can, or use a dollar when you need it,” he said. “Anyone can donate to the project when purchasing a meal and students can use up to three dollars at a time towards their food purchase.”
Roberts attributes the idea for the program to a McMaster student.
“A student had seen something similar at the 541 Eatery and believed it would be a good way to help students with food accessibility challenges,” Roberts said. “Hospitality Services was supportive of the idea and we have worked hard to get the program elements in place.”
541 Eatery & Exchange is a Hamilton café that uses a pay it forward initiative to give all community members a place at the table.
Café customers can donate a dollar to buy a button, and future customers can use buttons towards their meal.
It should be noted that the program will be funded exclusively via McMaster students, not the university. This may make it less sustainable in the long-term as the successes of the program will be contingent on students’ ability and willingness to donate.
In addition, pay it forward initiatives have the drawback of being vulnerable to abuse.
Students can use cards for humanity donations regardless of whether or not they face food insecurity because there exist no restrictions on program eligibility.
However, Roberts is not focused on those who may try to abuse the system. He maintains that the pilot program’s success will depend on whether it addresses food insecurity and raises awareness for postsecondary food insecurity in Canada.
“There are students who could come and use the program but they don’t because they tell me that they would rather give than receive,” said a Bridges employee named Maggie.
Roberts does not see this initiative expanding in the future as he hopes that the support provided from Bridges will meet the needs of students on campus.
The smooth operation of this program will depend on goodwill. If students do not abuse the program, donations will be allocated towards those who need them the most.
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Foot traffic expected to increase significantly in already limited space
In mid-winter when there is a load of work and a lack of sunlight, students can always use a little vitamin boost. And come January, they’ll have the opportunity to get this from smoothies when a new location of Booster Juice is slated to come to the McMaster University Student Centre.
After the closing of Scoops, a smoothie and ice cream vendor that occupied a small kiosk next to Tim Hortons, McMaster Hospitality Services (MHS) explored different options for new businesses for the space. The deal between MHS and Booster Juice was announced in December of last year.
Lori Diamond, Director of MUSC, noted that students are happy with the deal.
“Feedback from students … was overwhelmingly positive when our proposal came forward,” she said.
Despite the anticipation from students and administrators, there has been no noticeable progress on a storefront in the student centre. And at this point, the construction details are still unclear.
“Nothing is confirmed,” explained Albert Ng, Director of MHS. The University held a meeting with the contractor and construction project team on Nov. 19 in order to work out these details, but Ng emphasized the fact that no strict timeline had been set.
“Three groups are trying to establish what would be a conservable and doable schedule,” he said, noting that the coordination between these groups was not always easy. MHS has some control over the construction, as the electrical work is run through McMaster, but the equipment for the store comes from Booster Juice, and the contractor is from an external company.
“From my understanding, most of the kiosk itself is constructed off-site, then put in place and hooked up with electrical, plumbing and equipment,” Diamond explained.
MUSC administration said that the proposal suggested construction would start the week of Nov. 26, with the opening scheduled for Jan. 2. And despite the lack of confirmation for the plans, Ng said, “we’re still hopeful that we can get it done for the New Year.”
The kiosk will occupy the same place as the previous smoothie bar, though it “will have a larger footprint.” The choice of location has raised some concerns about traffic flow and available space in the student centre, which is already often overcrowded. And MUSC, which replaced Hamilton Hall as the student centre when it opened in 2002, was built at a time when the student population was approximately 14,000 full-time students.
Diamond noted, “we did … consider [the impact on space], as did Hospitality Services in bringing forward the proposal.”
She said that the addition of the kiosk would not require a removal of seating, but that the existing food court area will be reconfigured to accommodate it.
MUSC added 48 seats to the area last year in order to accommodate the “rising demand,” but during the day the space is almost always full.
And the new storefront could pose more of a problem than rearranged seating; like the Tim Horton’s, Booster Juice will have to have a lineup for its customers.
Diamond claimed that “it will be configured to corral the line-up away from the main traffic corridor.”
But it remains to be seen whether the convenience of campus smoothies will come at the cost of a busier student centre.
Before the plan for a campus location, the nearest Booster Juice was a few minutes from campus, located at Main Street and Thorndale. It has since been closed.
Booster Juice was unavailable for comment on whether or not this is related to McMaster’s new store.
Their bird of paradise logo is plastered all over campus catering and food providers.
It has been implicitly understood for years among students that any and all events held on campus cannot be catered by any company other than Paradise Catering.
The MSU began looking into what specific agreements obligated students to use Paradise Catering, and how exactly Paradise had positioned itself as the sole provider of catered food on campus.
Jeff Wyngaarden, MSU VP Finance, has devoted the last several months to researching the issue. He found that the contract between MSU and Hospitality services had not been revised since 1999 and consequently was rife with outdated references and ambiguous language.
Specifically, the contract applies to any MSU-affiliated activities held in the Student Centre, with the exception of the student-owned bar and convenience store.
Wyngaarden pointed out that the contract uses vague language to define the differences between “catering” and “potluck” when it comes to student events. It remains unclear how to determine what type of event requires catering versus what type of event can use a potluck.
For student groups and clubs, this difference can be crucial. Prohibitive food costs often force student clubs to forgo holding events or simply to limit the scale of their events.
Albert Ng, Director of Hospitality Services, recently gave a statement to the MSU regarding a new policy that will waive the 15 per cent service charge for MSU Clubs and Associations. This is a policy is a result of recent talks between the MSU and Hospitality Services, but had already been enjoyed by internal University departments.
However, under an MSU/Paradise Catering agreement, there appears to be room to maneuver for small-scale student events that can be considered potlucks.
This would appear to be good news for student groups, although students shouldn’t expect any great clarification to come from the revision of the MUSC hospitality agreement.
“We [have been told] we will not be given a numerical measure. We are supposed to use “common sense” [to determine what qualifies as a potluck]. The way it’s managed now is that Hospitality and someone in the University makes a judgment call about whether someone is violating the policy,” said Wyngaarden.
The contract also contains outdated references to the Downstairs John, the former student-run campus bar.
Wyngaarden has pledged to challenge some of the conditions of the Hospitality agreement in the coming months. However, he noted that the University and Hospitality Services have a powerful bargaining chip in the negotiations, which could hinder any drastic changes from being made to the revised agreement.
“The MSU is not paying occupancy costs for a lot of its space in MUSC. That occupancy cost is covered by the University … and a large portion is paid for Hospitality Services (or profits derived from Hospitality Services),” Wyngaarden explained.
“Any pressure we apply to try and lower the cost of food on campus or try and avoid using Paradise Catering…[doesn’t work because] they always have the trump card…[of] ‘how are we going to continue to pay for you in this building.’”
The origin of the campus-wide exclusivity understanding was uncovered in a different document, separate from the MUSC-specific agreement.
The Board of Governor’s “Policy on the Use of University Facilities for Non-Academic Purposes” (PUUFNAP) appears to contain several provisions that allude to the exclusivity agreement.
One clause states that Conference Services is responsible for student room bookings, and by extension, they would also refer the groups to other service departments (such as Hospitality) “as necessary.”
Another provision limits commercial activity, only allowing organizations operated by the University to sell services on campus. However, this provision only speaks to prohibiting sales of unapproved external companies on campus. But since the average student bringing outside food has most likely purchased the food off campus, this relevance of this clause becomes questionable.
Roger Couldrey, Vice-President Administration of McMaster, confirmed that the PUUFNAP document was “the right policy” to look at to understand the mandate Paradise Catering has to exclusively provide catering to McMaster.
The MSU aims to continue revising and renegotiating parts of the MUSC-specific contract, which may ease event restrictions for student groups using the Student Centre.
However, the blanket PUUFNAP agreement, which applies across the campus, is expected to remain largely unchanged.
