Vegan collective the Garden Spot did not receive its annual levy from the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) last year.
Every year, the collective known as the G-Spot receives a $2 levy from each student for what was the only all-vegan eatery on campus. Volunteers served breakfast and lunch on a pay-what-you-can basis.
But in the fall of 2012, G-Spot’s organizers told CUSA president Alexander Golovko and the office of Student Affairs that they did not plan on running the centre through the academic year.
After going to Carleton’s Board of Governors’ Audit and Finance Committee, Golovko said the levy was then voted to be removed at the next board meeting around November. Golovko said the levy was then given back to students’ accounts.
Food Centre programming co-ordinator Sarah McCue said a few people have contacted her saying they want to start up and volunteer for the Garden Spot again.
People have stopped at the Food Centre every week to ask what happened to the Garden Spot, she said.
“There are a lot of people who are paying a lot of attention right now and are going to do something about it, so I hope we will be seeing the Garden Spot in some form before the end of the year.”
She said serving food will be difficult without a designated space or the funding they would normally get from CUSA.
“It’s sort of an essential cog in our campus food security,” McCue said.
“The Food Centre can only do so much. We’re not built to feed people who walk in and need something now. That’s not the structure that we have, unfortunately we don’t have a kitchen. A lot of the food that we have is in cans and needs to be cooked.”
“[The G-Spot] being missing for so long has really taken a toll on students’ experience.”
