More Than a Meal: How Students Led UCalgary’s Food Security Movement

When Shaziah Jinnah Morsette first joined the University of Calgary Students’ Union, she knew students were struggling — but she didn’t realize just how many were going hungry.

“I’ve lived in that gray area — not food insecure enough to use the food bank, but struggling to afford food,” says Jinnah Morsette, BA’24 (Communications and Media Studies), BA’24 (Multidisciplinary). “Many students feel the same. We skip meals, trade lunch for parking and quietly compromise. Food becomes the first thing to go when life gets hard — it’s invisible.

That quiet struggle sparked something bigger.

What began as a modest food cupboard tucked away on campus eventually evolved into a full-campus network of affordable groceries, subsidized meals and nutrition-focused programming. The Campus Food Hub is now the heart of UCalgary’s food security response — and one of the university’s most visible student-driven success stories.