With the winter semester just starting and the workload ramping up for most students, many are still finding time in their schedule and their hearts to help those less fortunate.
Volunteers from the college gathered during the morning of Jan. 18 to help make nutritious meals for the Parkdale Food Centre in an effort to “fill up the freezer.”
Students worked well into the afternoon preparing flax chocolate chip cookies, as well as butter squash and mushroom quinoa soup.
The Parkdale Centre serves all of Ottawa as opposed to conventional food banks, who only service residents that live in their locality. This can cause problems for residents who live near the food bank, but outside its district.
Student volunteer Madison Rodney is passionate about giving back to the community. Having worked as a volunteer at the Western Ottawa Community Resource Centre, she sees poverty as “having the quality of life that isn’t the community standard.”
After learning about how a food bank is only able to serve their specific district, she said the system needs more integration.
Other volunteers like Lien Ho agree. She’s volunteered back in her home country with doctors and nurses, seeing firsthand, the effect poverty can have on health,
Both agree that in order to help those who are impoverished, there will need to be a diversified approach, one that involves prevention to help keep people from falling into poverty, coupled with incorporation of already existing efforts to maximize effectiveness in keeping people from falling back into it.