Launching community partnerships
The Physical Food Hub project is currently entering Phase 2: Launching Community Partnerships. Sarah Clement has been reemployed through the UBC Sustainability Scholars Program, and she will be working on this project until mid-March, 2021. Phase 1 was titled Envisioning a Physical Food Hub at UBCO, and involved an environmental scan, a literature review, and a campus community consultation process involving over 100 campus stakeholders, including students, staff, and faculty. Phase 1 wrapped up with the publicization of a report and a presentation detailing our research, findings, and recommendations, both which can be found lower down on this webpage. Our findings revealed strong support for the development of a Physical Food Hub at UBCO to support student food security through holistic and engaged wraparound supports, programs, and services.
Phase 2 involves the formation of partnerships between the university and community organizations; partnerships that will help actualize food hub programming and services, and support student food security on campus. Our prior consultations revealed the essentiality of partnerships to the success and sustainability of this project. We aspire to engage in bilateral partnerships in which the university and our campus community will collaborate with community partners to co-create beneficial outcomes for all. This project phase will include an environmental scan of potential community partners, outreach and engagement with community organizations, and creation of collaborative pilot projects with partners. This phase will also include a focus on establishing internal partnerships, collaborating with existing UBCO food security and wellbeing initiatives as well as faculty, students, and staff.
Please contact Sarah Clement at scleme01@mail.ubc.ca or Casey Hamilton at casey.hamilton@ubc.ca if you would like to become involved, connect, or find out more information.
To read our full report, summary report, and infographic and/or to watch our presentation, visit this page.
We will share updates about the evolution of this project once every month. Stay tuned!