promised last week celia white the value healthy communities coordinator is with us again good morning celia good morning to that and you have a guest on the phone yes i'd like to introduce melissa towns and who is via use food services manager hi melissa hi thanks for for calling in today during your busy schedule oh no thank you for having me so we've we've asked melissa in today to talk about some really exciting changes happening at via you and this is in the context of my position via use healthy communities coordinator where i focus on creating a healthier and more sustainable food system on campus and that includes a position of used food services manager and she actually did her diploma in hospitality management at vi you and is currently working on her bachelor of commerce is that correct well yes that's right what are some of the changes happening with india we depressives right now just to introduce what we'll be talking about sure absolutely so based on some student feedback that we received last year we did a focus group for students and staff and then this past year we had a food value survey that went out and the information that we received back from the both of those sessions w that there was a lack of available hot food after one o'clock in the cafeteria we were lacking some variety there was a strong request for healthier options and also more information was required about food services on campus so some of the ways that we've addressed that this year is the rate we've introduced an all day soup program and we have a breakfast burritos every morning we have brought in some gluten free snacks and other healthy options such as veggie and fruit cups that are available throughout the day we are this year we're focusing on more options over the lunch period and extending the lunch hour and to later on so that students can access hot meals after that one pm cutoff and we're also offering some vegetarian options in the cafeteria on a daily basis instead of just when the commentary arts program is is teaching vegetarian so we're just we're trying to offer more flexibility in the cafeteria and then as well we produced a campus food guide this year that we were giving out to students just with information on food on campus and where accessit what's the what are your options for food and the hours of operation now because of my work i'm aware of all of these changes already but here as you summarize them is actually really amazing so it's there's a lot going on and it's it's quite impressive that all of these changes has have happened just recently just in this year and it's also rewarding to have been part of the process of putting out that student survey and then responding to them so immediately and so effectively and i think that speaks to the importance of survey work and research in that students often feel like it is a burden and it can be time burden absolutely to be receiving and doing surveys while their homework is actually a priority but this is the kind of result that can occur from the survey work that's that's tangible and relevant to the students and increases their quality of life on campus so that's really rewarding to see absolutely yes it's fantastic information and the end of the day we want to provide food services that meet the needs of the students and so more feedback we can get from them on what they want to see the better for us and is it true that food services doesn't actually make much of a profit  we're no we're not in the our goal is not to make a profit our goal is to service the campus community so we certainly are not looking to  make any money off the food services here right and i think that that is a surprise to many students or to to many individuals in the via you community because they see food services as business first but in reality  it's it's more about responding to student need because students are our customers and we're only going to be surviving on campus if if we're we're putting out and and putting out the foods and the items that students actually desire yes and it is such an integral part of the whole experience on campus so and it's what fuels students to be able to learn so it really is an intricate part of the whole campus experience we don't want to think about it as separate in terms of a business it really is part of the community here on campus yeah absolutely actually mclean's did an article so maclean's every year puts out  rankings on universities across canada and last year they had a full page spread on the importance of food sustainability and healthy food systems on campus and i wonder how food is so much more or is becoming so much more than just a compartmentalized area of where people eat it's becoming more and more a holistic part of students educational and pedagogical activities from being nourish so that students can perform well on campus to bein a part of students tend to pull research activities if their research food systems on campus to even an important part of students every day activities from being part of celebratory food events like free campus dinners or volunteering at food banks or volunteering in things like the use campus food movement it's as you said it's integrity and it's not only integrity to the function of the university or the functioning of the human body but it's it's part of our livelihood and part of our culture on campus which is really exciting absolutely yeah yeah so why do you think these changes are important for of yet you well i think that the the main reason is that are here to serve the students and we want to make sure that the services we provide help students get the most of their experience here at c r u i strongly believe that like you said  food is a is a huge part of that the whole experience and the nourishment and we want the students to receive the food that they want to eat or that they can eat we want them to be able to walk into the cafeteria and find food that's going to meet their requirements prior to this i'm not sure how well we were able to do that and so with this with these changes i'm hoping that we will be able to meet a lot more of the students that we have on campus we have a huge diverse student population here so we want to be able to meet the needs of the majority of those students whom yeah i was speaking to some students who originally come from somalia and they were concerned about not getting pork in their meal or being able to access hello meat so that's just one example of the diversity of food needs that that be a you food services has to respond to and it's it's an interesting both opportunity and dilemma to have a colon arts program where students are are learning from a specific curriculum yet while also simultaneously responding to this diversity of needs absolutely and i think that's where the information comes in you know we are trying really hard to provide information to the students so that they can make informed choices on the food in the cafeteria and that's one of the things that  comes up as a challenge it is wonderful we are so lucky to have a colony arts program here on campus that provides our lunch breakfast lunch and dinners and that are you know very high quality food for for you know not very expensive prices but they are based on a curriculum where they teach that curriculum to the students and that's what's being served so it's a challenge to meet the needs of the country arts department and to meet the needs  the food services there i'm sorry that the student population here on campus and now you you mentioned education and and transparency and what's actually being served so students are informed can you speak a little bit more about that topic in terms of the new educational campaign that you're running on campus sure so the campus food guide was the start of that information that we're trying to to provide information to students about you know all the things that go on the cafeteria and then for this this year we every month we're having a different item that we're addressing and we're going to be posting that in the cafeteria and on our face page and it's just really sort of getting to know food services and also food food issues and nutritional content and information we were very lucky to have a workshop student through the summer that worked on real food challenge calculator and so her or her work opposition was looking at the you know what partially of our food comes from whole food and where that comes from and  that was really exciting information for us and we're hoping that we'll be able to share that with the student population as well that i want to speak a little bit more about that project actually the real food challenge calculator was started as a project in the united states and was developed over a course of many years actually quite extensive research went into developing a definition of what real food means and it it it is we get by a variety of categories or themes so there is real food in terms of health so is it good for our bodies is it full of nutrients also in terms of the health of our communities so how much were the people paid is it a livable wage who are part of getting us food from the soil to our plates what is the the effect on the animals that are involved in the food system how are they being treated and then also what is the effect on the environment or the extra maladies on the environment and this project via you was the inaugural campus or university in canada to bring the real food challenge calculator to this country and so it's working both as effective program for us so that we can calculate exactly what percentage of our food is is defined as a real in this specific definition and then it's also a pilot project to see how how can this calculator be used in canada because there are some difficulties translating the definition from the united states to the canadian food context simply because canada doesn't have as many foods or vacations or food standards as the united states does or they have somewhat different different standards in terms of how the food is legitimized for a specific certification so so through the work of student were we're figuring out via use context and then we're also learning a little bit about how we can relate canada's food system to the real food challenge calculator and this year we are recruiting students from all across canada universities all across canada to be part of a consortium of schools that will be diving into more in depth research in terms of adapting the real food challenge calculator to canada and hopefully making up our own definition of what does real food mean for the canadian context so that we can challenge universities across canada the idea as it stands process we this is a groundbreaking initiative and now we're part of getting the ball rolling or initiating the snowballing effect of broadening the scope of it to a national level and so i'm wondering this information is going to be so relevant for students so students can actually understand where their food is coming from how much of it is local how much of it is for example how much of the meat is free range how much is want to add on to our web page is the food value survey and the information from the real food challenge calculator that finished and i think that we really would like to have  real food challenge calculator as part of our base to move forward so this is where we are now and where do we want to go from here and you you mentioned the campus food guide can you explain what that is sure yeah so our is was given out in the beginning of their we have copies here in the cafeteria as well and basically it's just gives you the rundown of food services on campus so what you need to know about  cafeterias what services we have how to get the most out of your cafeteria the best deals of the day and also about healthy and sustainable food system so you know who who is on campus you know farmer's market what other things are going on food related if anyone wanted to get involved great and so in terms of the monthly facebook postings of different themes what what sort of information can we look forward to learning over th coming months oh there's going to be a lot of information that comes out and one of the key ones that i'm very excited for is that we already have a lot of really good practices here at the i lots of really great things that we're already doing in food services and it gives us the opportunity to let people know about what's going on and so you know if people are wanting that information they would be able to find it on on facebook great  so for new students or for people not totally familiar with the food services available on via you can you explain a little bit about what food services actually possessed for example the upper cafeteria the lower cafeteria sure yeah absolutely so we had two cafeterias on campus we call them the upper and lower cafeterias the upper cafeteria is building three hundred and we provide breakfast lunch and dinner in that cafeteria this is also the home of the common art students so they produce food they have a breakfast program a lunch program and at dinner program that they produce and we work with them around the times that they're a they're not producing food then we have the lower cafeteria which is building one eighty five that's home to the professional baking program so in the lower cafeteria you're going to see a lot of pizzas and donuts and those kind of food products down there so if you're looking for really good pizza that's where you'll find it and doesn't you know you have a special pizza yes we have a wood burning pizza oven that the professional baking program uses in their curriculum and the pizza is fantastic if you really get it and then we also have a fine dining restaurant called the discovery room on campus it's located in building three hundred and it's open for lunch on tuesday to friday and dinner on thursdays and fridays and this is really a very special place this food is cooked by the  students and services provided by the hospitality management students it is a fabulous opportunity to to get to enjoy some fine dining food at some reasonable prices and  enjoy the view on campus as well we have catering sir this is from eating events on campus and there's also a subway here on campus coffee shop jump in jaffa and then we also there's also a student union pub in the student union building ok and now having only gone through via you for my undergrad this feels like a lot of options but through this job i've been researching the other food services that other campuses and  we got our idea from to make a campus food guide and it is it's like a magazine of all of the food to resign that they have and so i feel very fortunate to have this position of a place like vi you were where we have a lot more impact on the small number of food services operations that we have because we're we're able to to tangibly affect them much more because of our greater influence in relation to the small number that exist i agree with you and i that one of the reasons that it it makes it easier to make changes because it is a smaller smaller community on campus and what about i mean we as the food services manager you have control over the cafeterias and the discovery room but what about the operations like subway what what is the your relationship with that business where we have a really great working relationship with have a they have been actually both a car shop and subway have been on campus here for many many many years and so we meet with them on a regular basis and discuss you know even things that come up on campus and we are always able to work through the true though with with them so we have a really good working relationship with both of those entities on campus wonderful and i'm going to break quickly so that suzanne can point out some upcoming community events and when we come back most i'm going to ask you about what are the best the downtown and imo but wherever there's an internet connection c h l why dot ca where we stream live and podcast and i will have the podcast of today's program up as soon as i can so that if you missed any part of it you'll be able to hear the whole thing at your convenience yes and events well something this isn't exactly an event but it is call canada world youth is seeking host families and this is really interesting you can make a difference in the lives of two young people explore new perspectives and cultures and develop lasting relationships each host will welcome to you one indonesian and one canadian from october tenth to january second two thousand and fifteen you fall in tears should be included as family members and one spare room is all that's required hosts receive a weekly allowance of one hundred eighty dollars to help with costs and to project supervisors will be supporting the program locally we invite people of all ages ethnicities faith genders sexual orientations family types and more to express their interest since nine hundred seventy one more than thirty seven thousand youth from canada and around the world have persis appeared in canada world you projects and we have talked about canada world youth before on the show although it has been a while now and although we may mentioned it fairly recently i think i lean stewart who was on the show fairly recently  s possibly a participant at one time at any rate you can contact simon shack in or for more information he's the local projects supervisor many of you know simon as a host in the past on c h l like out of the below they and other programs popular participation movement as well i think he can be reached at seven seven eight two six one one five nine eight repeat that speak slowly so you have a chance to grab a pen seven seven eight two six nine one five nine eight y c m dot org so take advantage of that that sounds like it could be a really great experience for you and your family whatever your family type may be no food related event and this is a bit farther away everything else here i'm going to mention is a bit farther away but there may be those in our listening area who are able to attend the first one is justice begins with seeds that runs from september welse on september twelfth and thirteenth in portland oregon it's a gathering for activists and organizations concerned about our food systems you can help strategize shareholder and consumer campaigns like labeling and banning g m o foods and for more information you can check bio safety alliance dot org there's also a g m awareness film series there from september seventh to tenth and i've got a little more information in here there's a really nice poster on that website once again biosafety alliance dot org this will take place at the first congregational united church of christ on self west park avenue in portland and the film series from september seventh takes place at the clinton street theater so there's loads of information there if you just go to that site now something that's happening a little closer to home there's going to be an international rally to protect the sailors sea and our global climate on september twentieth at one pm at peace arch park and everyone i'm assuming knows where that is that's right at the border crossing between the lower mainland and washington state together with partners on both sides of the border georgia straight alliance is organizing a rally at the peace arch to demand unprecedented action to defend the and our global climate from fossil fuel development the rally coincides with the historic people's climate march mobilization in new york and will mention a bit more about that in a minute a nd there will be a signing later in the week of a new treaty to protect the sacredness of the sailors sea by coast sail asian nations and for more information on that you can see triple w georgia straight dot ninth but farther down it does say september twentieth which is a saturday so i oh i believe that is the correct date so again georgia street dot org check events which is in the menu at the top of the screen finally just out of interest because of the mention of the people's climate march you can go to triple w dot climate a week in the y e c dot org and they have information on more than eighty climate related events that will take place in new york during the u n climate summit the summit itself takes place or twentieth to twenty eighth but the events that are on that site actually start on september ninth so there's loads going on once again that's triple w dot climate week and the y c dot org and how i see of course as in new york city the program that you're listening to and c h l i want a one point seven f m in the imo is changes and today celia white the vi you healthy communities coordinator is talking with melissa tells in who's the vi you food services manager and you're going to tell us about the best deals that students can find on a budget you know if i am so melissa i'm wondering if you can talk about the best deals for breakfast a luncheon dinner for students ok so in my opinion the best deal that we have on campus is a breakfast and whether that's  produce the price of breakfast is three seventy nine that could be a full egg bacon and toast or that could be a breakfast burrito depending on where we are in a semester but that afternoon and a really great deal is you need to you know as the weather is getting a little bit colder out there soup is a really great option and with a bond it makes a great meal and there's usually more than one option of soup is that correct yes so  we typically have two to three soups depending on cone art so they'll produce one and that we will have one as well and this year we are going to be adding chili to that as well line up so we'll have huge approximately two to three sips and then a chili as well great and in conversation a few days ago melissa you mentioned that the soup made by the cone arts program is often made from leftovers from past meals can you speak to that little well not not particularly past me else but they would use foods that had been produced in other classes so they work in conjunction with each other so if there was if they were doing a chicken noodle soup that chicken would be processed through meat cutting and then they would use that for the soup and other class so it really is about trying to incorporate all the different entities narrative area and that's that's really positive information too that the food isn't simply going through one stream and then being wasted afterwards but that it's been used through a variety of means which i think often doesn't necessarily happen in restaurants if it's if it's going to take more time or cost more money to to try and find creative ways to use the food so it's it's exciting the value is is doing that and making such good meals out of it yeah it is a huge part of our food services here is is trying to make sure that no food is wasted in in the in the cafeterias obviously following food safety guidelines and all those things but but yeah we definitely try to make sure that the food that being produced by the con art students is being used in the cafeteria and in a useful way definitely and then what about dinner what are some good deals for dinner we have probably the best d l is the blue plate special that they do in the evening which is five ninety nine and that's when the common arts department is in in session and it depends on what they're doing as well again they incorporate the food that's being produced and the coloring it's to department and use that and so then well if we're able to offer  savings on on dinner service there is well great yeah one of the other things that we do have as well as our professional baking department produces a lot of baking and we don't use any preservatives in our baking so we only sell the baking at full price for it on the day that it's produced and then the day after that when it's so great food we would the baking goes to have price so in our upper cafeteria a lot times in the morning when you come in you'll see bags of baking which we call them day old and that is at a discounted price for those items as well that is always where i get my baking wonderfalls yeah it's amazing yeah because you have a professional baking program yes yeah we're really lucky to have them here on campus it's just it's it's very tempting to have a donut every day and there's those bags of muffins and all kinds of flavors and that was just the best study smack about a group of students with chip in together and then we'd all have a muffin and they're so inexpensive yes absolutely yeah it's very economical and it's and it's a great way to to get some food any of  some of the other things that we have here on campus is if you bring your own mug which we highly recommend for sustainability reasons as well but the price of a coffee is a dollar seventy nine which is great consider that the one price is the when you get into thermoses then we'll have to figure out a little bit differently but any size travel micah's fine and then we also have a coffee card which you can get stamped and we can we keep them here or you can take it with you and then after once you've reached a certain amount of coffees and you get a free one which is which is always nice and then we also have dining dollars in the cafeteria and what diet you dollars is we don't have a meal plan here but dying dollars is sort of similar to that where you use your student card and you load money onto your card for every hundred dollars that you load onto your card you get ten dollars extra and that can be used in the cafeterias and when you go through the cash register you just swipe it and the money payment gets taken off the card it's totally refundable there's no expiry date so if you know that you're going to be eating in the cafeteria and spending one hundred dollars or more it's worth it to put that on your student card and you get an extra ten dollars every time every time you put a hundred on and i know that that other universities do have this program too but the common practice is for the money to expire at the end of the year so it's it's a really great opportunity for students students should not pass up the opportunity of dining dollars because you're going to be here for a couple years you'll probably use one hundred dollars in the cafeteria at some point yes some point you  probably will and that yeah like you said the the really great thing about this program is that if for any reason you decide oh i'm i'm i don't think i'm going to use the cafeteria anymore it's it's refundable minus the the ten dollars for the hundred but it is refundable to you or if you don't use it all up by the end of the year then you can get a refund as well so there's no conditions on the money it is yours and it's just sits on your student car until you're ready to use it that's a great program how long is up and running for it has been around for i think it's been around for about six years now well that's great yeah and then so so there's the  hot drinks card which is a great deal too because you can get your last drink free and there's also the opportunity to hand in your hot drinks card for a rise is that correct yeah if you hand them in each week we draw  for lunch and so for everybody that enters it and then we draw one person's name out of there and then they get a free buffet lunch do you know about how many people handed in every week you know i'm i don't know i don't know how many  actually had the man but i don't i don't know if it's that many it's probably i would guess that it's not very many i used to my high school they had this opportunity to hand in a little stub of a newsletter that you're supposed to take  to your parents so prove that your parents read it or something and then you would handed in and be put in the in a draw for a prize and i won every single time because nobody else has got one else that i so i think you probably have a pretty good chance with the coffee card or not and that's a free meal for friday yes and it happens every week that's right yeah yeah yeah so it's an excellent opportunity there and the other thing that we do is we we also have  promotions that we do through the cafeteria for a free lunch or free breakfast and any time there's any sort of contest like that we put that on our facebook we just finished up last in the spring nominate a student event and we'll be running out again in the spring where you nominate somebody that you feel is deserving of a free lunch and if their name is chosen then both of you would get a free lunch so we'll be doing that again in the spring in the cafeteria that's great yeah and then other ways to save money that i'm aware of are obviously bringing a reusable water bottle because of you know you have banned bottled water on campus so there's free water taps everywhere and there's actually a really nice herb in the community garden right outside of the cafeteria with mint and and lemon bahman lavender and i used to pick some of those herb and put them in my water to make it feel like more of an expensive drink oh that's nice yes definitely and then i know that there's still lots of bottled drinks and pops were still in the cafeteria there's also vitamin water flavored waters of the companies are getting around the the bottled water moratorium but what is the most inexpensive way to get popper juice we also have a fountain juice and pop so again you can bring your own  or juice container or we have cups there but it is a lot more economical to to use that if you're if you're interested use to have your own container and that's in the upper cafeteria great and then there's also a new initiative for for five dollar meals can you think about that a little bit yes so in the cafeteria we have a big sign that says no no i have orders and where it sort of changing that whole mentality of you know we want to serve the food that students want to again so one of the things that we're going to be doing for the lunch period is offering a smaller sized portion but it will be for five dollars instead of the regular six ninety nine or seven ninety nine and just to give students some more options if they're if they want to smaller meal then they'll be able to purchase that and that kind of project tackles various issues from minimizing food waste of students can finish the full meal to increasing access to healthy healthy and affordable meals because five dollars is really reasonable i mean that's that's less or equal to what you'd be spending at subway and subway has the illusion of being really inexpensive yeah and that's the thing is that it's you know that's students don't tend to have a lot of money so we want to be able to offer them options and one of those w you know one of those ideas that came out of the survey and and the information that we've collected is that you know if smaller portions might be something that students would like to see and the survey actually the feedback that we got was that price is the number one concern for students and that's that's to be assumed i think that price is always going to be a concern when we have limited resources and food is is a vital part of getting through our day but what we don't necessarily have the flexibility to decrease prices on the food that we're serving because we're not we're not making a profit off students so these various projects are our creative ways of responding to that need from decreasing the portion size and offering more inexpensive options like the soup and the bun and the great deals for breakfast and offering free money to students with with the dining dollars i think these are all great options and and responses to this this feedback that we received well yeah hopefully that isn't and i'm hoping that these initiatives do meet the needs of our students here so popular and then of course buff a days on friday or one of our busiest meal times that which is the whole bunch period ok now steve golub who's who works at u b c in their food services department i think i believe he's and and a newfound interest in healthy and sustainable foods and yet the most popular items are consistently things like protein and i'm wondering how how you reconcile that in your job like how do you respond to both the desire for healthy and sustainable foods and then the desire for greasy and healthy foods that that sometimes help us get through a very stressful bad well to me i see that they have to go hand in hand i consider myself very healthy and i eat very healthy but i still enjoy poutine so i think that that's the balance there you have to give people the options  address how how they want to eat on any particular day so i don't it's not i don't find it frustrating but i it's it is a challenge because one person's idea of healthy eating is different than another person's and so with with trying to provide as much variety you know the pizzas are really great example of that so our pizza is a pizza but  it's made with you know no preservatives and in the dough our firewood oven produced and as much i'm healthy getting as much healthy vegetables in there as possible so there's you know there's ways to do both i think and and so hopefully we'll be able to address both of those needs absolutely and i think it also comes down to issue of empowering students to make the choices that they truly want to be making in the choices that provide them the the most health and happiness throughout their day so it's not about limiting unhealthy options because that's what we think is right for them but about that's responding to needs and responding to public discourse and and that requires a yeah going hand in hand with things like poutine that's delicious and horrible for you one thing that's like a salad bar that's also delicious but good for you yeah and i think to again you know one going back to one of our original topics they're about information and education and i think that you know that that also will provide students with information so that they're able to make choices on their own as well and at the same time going beyond information because i've i've read over and over again that being aware of an issue does not at all correlate to taking action on that issue or caring about that issue so it's it's transcending just providing information and also leading by example so showing that you as an institution actually cares about the topics of sourcing local foods and providing healthy foods and purchase seen organic and free range meat so by demonstrating that these are important issues to be a you such that be are you is actually willing to invest in them and provide them and put a lot of energy into figuring out how to get these into cap into the cafeteria then i think it's much more likely that the students will be empowered to do so as well instead of just learning about these issues yes definitely  what are you most excited about or even passionate about in regards to some of these changes that are happening on campus well i think that i'm most excited about the fact that we are definitely focused on change and i think it's a change that's motivated for the right reasons so even though we're just in the beginning stages i think there's so many exciting options and things coming up and so that really motivates me to keep going in this area because i definitely can see the feedback from the students and and i think that we definitely are in the right direction and it's sort of an along the same theme what has been the biggest difficulty that either you have faced in the past or that you continue to face every day as the food services manager well the biggest challenge i would say is just trying to meet the needs of again  students on campus so we understand that dietary needs are important and they need to be considered but we also need to make food that the students want to eat so sort of the you know salad bar and poutine scenario again we one need to make sure that we're offering enough for id for the students and trying to find those items that the students want to eat but also like you said we have students that have you know well don't eat pork or there's other dietary restrictions that we have to take into consideration as well so it's a it's a very big sort of puzzle piece to getting food prepared for the cafeteria and it's even more of a challenge because value has quite a small student population so in responding to these needs that are representative of a minorit as a vegetarian or wanting gluten free options or even veganism it's not a big enough population to to spawn an entire industry out of it on campus so there's there's campuses or universities like you vic where they have an entire kitchen dedicated to vegetarian food right but vi you would absolutely not be able to to respond to a need in that way because our the population of students who are vegetarian is substantial in percentage but is not substantial in actual numbers that's right and you know one of the other things that we we get a lot of requests for gluten free food but we have baking students in both of our cafeterias so we cannot produce anything that we would be allowed to call gluten free or even gluten friendly based because there's just there's flour in in the in the cafeterias and there and the in the kitchens and there's student father there learning so you know that's a big challenge anything that we bring in that we anything that  we consider to be gluten friendly we would have to bring and we can't produce it in our kitchens oh interesting yeah so there's a lot of you know things like that that we we we work around with in the common area and professional baking and you know food services and color in the arts is a source of great pride for vo you as an institution the students when countless awards at competitions and it's a very high level program and is even expanding to unprecedented levels at the couch and campus where it's a it's a farm to play kaleri program that's right and so there's many opportunity use due to the cologne or its program but from the perspective of the food services manager it's also there's also many barriers that are obstacles that were jump you know because of the killing arabs program so it's a unique situation and i think the i you is set up to be a leader across canada too by by means of navigating these interesting obstacles yes it certainly adds another level of challenge to providing you know meals here but it also if we're very very lucky to have the canary arts and professional development of professional baking departments here because they offer so much to the students and and they offer a level of food that you know you don't necessarily get in cafeterias and other institutions so we're very lucky but with that comes some challenges and and yeah we're we're definitely working through them and and i think that it can only make our food services better here on campus about the theme of experiential learning where students are able to apply their research or their curriculum directly to ten jewel projects on campus and cullen arts is an ideal example of that where students via you are are cooking for other students and and what what more amazing way to learn and to to go through a program than to cook food for your peers and then to eat food from your peers i think that's that's extraordinary it's very unique  other out and and the students get to see cooks working and an actual setting of you know what they would be doing out in industry but also they get to the interaction with the students and other people on campus so it is a it's a excellent opportunity for them listen how has this job changes the person do you think it's it seems like a very challenging job ye as solidified my passion for healthy food and food accessibility in our community students here on campus are so passionate and i think that their passion has rubbed off on me on the last four years definitely  and i think i hope that we're making change of it to the food system for the better we my intention is always meant to make his services accessible to all students and i really feel that we're on the right yeah it's been so rewarding for me to be to be working with you because it does feel like we're making an impact in responding to to the desires of the students from the research that we've received no there is an upcoming event on september thirtieth that's going to summarize a lot of the changes happening on the campus and i'm wondering if you can speak to what this event will look like and and give a little bit of information for anyone who's interested in attending sure absolutely so we're having an open house on september thirtieth it's going to be in the building three hundred it's going to be during the day we haven't determined the time yet but it will be during the day and it's an opportunity for students and staff here to come and see what food services on campus is all about so not just the cafeterias but anything food related here on campus will have food and we really would love to see everybody come out we've discussed today and then other programs that are happening like the farmer's market on campus which will be every tuesday and thursday between eleven and one we've also started other projects such as field trips to local farms where students can volunteer for a few hours and then are guaranteed to take home food box from food that they've heard harvested valued at twenty dollars and we've also started a new group on campus that's the green team where students can sign up to pick fruit or knot or even produce from local gardens and trees around town and then they take home this abundance of free food so there's lots of opportunities to get involved and be a use food system as well as opportunities to to access really healthy inexpensive if not free locally sourced often food on campus so it's going to be a really interesting event and it's and it's going to be a beautiful year i think in terms of creating more more of a healthy and sustainable food system it's it's exciting to be on campus this year and it's it's definitely driving my passion as well great so thank you so much for your time melissa well thank you very much for having me and i have enjoyed talking to you about all the things that we're doing here it's exciting and i i just also like to express appreciation because food service managers are often not accessible or not seen as as someone that students can partner with or speak to and it's it's so motivating and and really valuable to have someone like you on the view you campus where you're willing to sit down and have a discussion with us and you're willing to host these events like the open house coming up on september thirtieth to speak to students and respond to their needs and i think the view you population should be both aware of and appreciative of the effort that you're making to to be accessible and to respond to needs and to partner with with the passions of of the students and staff on campus so thank you so much for the work that you're doing thank you thanks melissa and perhaps we'll speak again in  farmers markets started yet on campus yes so the two there's this week as the kickoff event of the farmers market and it's hosted to morrow and thursday ok but today's tuesday today is tuesday yes so that's a good point so because it's it's the first week of school and today is actually the first day of school so congratulations to all the students out there who are either miserable or happy or maybe a combination of both to be back the  farmer's market will be starting to morrow just because it's quite a hectic day today and then next week it'll be tuesday and wednesday and i know those are odd days because following that it'll it'll get into more of a solidified routine of tuesdays and thursdays great so you know i thank you so much once again we'll see you again next month i think yes and that's our show changes her every tuesday morning at eleven here on c h l y check us out on facebook and on behalf of our production team thanks so much for joining us