About the Food Resource Centre


What is the Food Resource Centre?

In 2020, the LUSU Foodbank was remodeled and renovated to the LUSU Food Resource Centre (FRC). The aim of the Centre is to break down the stigma that surrounds accessing emergency food resources on campus by creating a welcoming environment for students.

As a Centre, we provide:

    • Emergency food support

    • Educational workshops

    • Programming (such as the People's Potato and Good Food Box)

    • Volunteer and leadership opportunities, and community building

    • We also advocate for a food secure campus


The FRC includes three Subdivisions:

  • The Pantry: A safe, stigma-free environment that provides students who are experiencing food insecurity with culturally-diverse, nutritional, dietary accommodating foods including both non-perishables and fresh options

  • The Kitchen: A community kitchen space. The Kitchen will host cooking classes with students where they can learn new recipes, meal preparation, skills, and more!


Will be functional in the summer of 2023 and provide students with fresh fruits and vegetables.

The object of the LUSU Food Resource Centre is to eliminate student hunger at Lakehead University. Although it is important to have emergency resources available (such as The Pantry) we must also move beyond charitable approaches and advocate for larger change, which is why we have the three following levels of support:



  1. Emergency Food Reponse: The Food Resource Centre provides emergency food support through The Pantry; which is a safe, stigma-free environment that provides students with culturally-diverse, nutritional, dietary accommodating foods including both non-perishables and fresh options.
  2. Student Engagement and Community-Based Responses:  We want to empower students to get involved, through educational workshops, volunteer, and leadership opportunities. We will also have programs such as the People’s potato (which offers free hot lunches to students) and the Good Food Box (a community program which provides people with fresh fruits and vegetables). We are also working on developing The Garden which will provide students with fresh fruits and vegetables grown right at Lakehead University. 
  3. Advocacy: Student food insecurity is a nationwide issue. Meal Exchange (2022) found that in the Fall of 2021 56.8% of post-secondary students across Canada were food insecure. Previous research also links food insecurity to poverty. Given this, The FRC will work to address the problems in the university food system by advocating for accessible, affordable, culturally-diverse, nutritious and sustainable foods on campus. We will also bring awareness to and advocate on the larger issues tied to food insecurity (high costs of living, tuition rates, etc.). We believe that food is a basic human right. We also understand the importance of incorporating food sovereignty and Indigenous food sovereignty approaches to the solution of food insecurity.


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