Vision

The purpose of The Hunger Project was to spread awareness about the detrimental effects of food insecurity and alternatives to mitigate them, as well as take action to help those in need in the Markham community. Throughout the duration of the campaign, we emphasized the importance of dismantling the stigma associated with food insecurity, and focused on directly interacting with communities and students to do so. Our vision was to bring more attention to the issue at Unionville High School, and to empathize by “putting themselves in someone else’s shoes.”

Action

The focus of our 2-week student-led, student-driven campaign and initiative was on two parts: a food drive, and a food insecurity workshop.

Part I of The Hunger Project was a food drive; through the usage of social media promotions, efforts from numerous staff, student collaboration, and word of mouth, we spread the news that we were collecting donations for the Markham Food Bank. This was a direct effort to combat food insecurity and address the issue at its heart. The goal was to provide assistance to the Markham Food Bank–a food bank in the area, which reported struggles to keep up with the increased demand throughout 2023 and 2024. The goal was originally 100 donations.

The Part II of The Hunger Project was a wrap-up meeting to conclude the initiative with two focuses. The first focus was to celebrate the success of the food drive and help participants understand the detrimental effects of food insecurity, and “put themselves in their shoes.” Our secondary focus was on introducing home gardening–a sustainable, reliable, and cost-effective alternative to simply going to the grocery store and paying the inflated sticker prices for groceries. Recent research and statistics suggest that starting a home garden could save a person or family up to $100 a month on groceries, which is a staggering statistic in the long run.

EnviroCouncil ran a monopoly-style food insecurity simulator; participants were given a certain amount of “cash” and throughout the in-game “month,” they had to sustain themselves by paying several expenses. In this game, students were given a taste of the reality of juggling day-to-day expenses such as rent, utilities, and other bills on top of needing to spend money on groceries. At the end, students were given an opportunity to grow their own vegetables and were given a free variety of vegetable plants to take home, so they could start their own gardens.

Our actions and campaign were primarily focused on these two events; EnviroCouncil execs who organized the event even attended a staff meeting to present their findings and successes to teachers, the principal, and other staff at Unionville High School in order to raise awareness and to build upon this event in future school years.

Reflection & Celebration

We were able to successfully encourage Unionville High School students to participate in the campaign. Our initial goal of 100 cans–which we believed to be a modest and realistic projection, was surpassed by an estimated fourteen times; the final, rough count of the number of cans collected was 1,401 cans.

In total we grew about 50 different vegetable plants–comprising of homegrown tomatoes, two different lettuce varieties, kale, snap peas, and other types of plants; we passed these out to participants and continue to nurture several in the school. Students learned about how to grow their own organic and healthy food from seeds. About 140 staff were involved with the growth and promotion of the food drive, and we estimate that approximately 1000 students of the 2,100 student population at Unionville High School were directly involved. This is based on the estimate that each student donated approximately 1-2 cans each.

In the future, as a next step we plan on making this initiative an annual event to collect donations and support our community by directly addressing food security, providing sustainable alternatives to mitigating its effects, and championing equity. As we plan to host this event next year, we will likely increase the scale and targets, increase the parameters of the donations, easier access to our donation centres in the high school to collect donations, and possibly provide more local community involvement.