Talks Begin on Bringing Hot Food Back to Campus

Despite food trucks such as the Bribe My Belly taco truck and the Bluum Coffee truck, food insecurity persists among students at WSU Vancouver, and options for fresh food remain scarce. ASWSUV President Jacob Windstead said that rather than the kitchens used at WSU Vancouver before COVID, a smaller scale operation akin to the Cougar Pantry could be the next step.

Windstead and Interim Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Damian Sinnott are currently exploring options for WSU Vancouver to provide more fresh food to students, although talks are still in the early stages, with no concrete plan in place yet.

They are currently considering offering something akin to WSU Tri-Cities’ Student Union Building Coffee shop, which also offers paninis. Windstead said this is a possibility given that Tri-Cities has made it work despite having a thousand less students than the Vancouver Campus.

It was student feedback coming from a range of departments across WSU Vancouver that prompted these talks to begin.

“Everything on this campus is always led by student feedback,” Windstead said.

Any improvements to fresh food options at WSU Vancouver are currently at the “estimation of costs” phase. 

While it’s possible that WSU Vancouver could see an announcement of more concrete plans for more food options during next spring, Windstead said that he didn’t want to give “false hope.” According to Windstead, any announcement of a plan would probably be more focused on explaining the next steps, as well as the positives or negatives of any course of action.

“The reason why the kitchens closed wasn’t just because of COVID and enrollment dropped, it was because it was bleeding money rapidly,” Windstead said.

Even if a plan was put in place, the kitchens are currently not up to code, Windstead said that Service and Activities (S&A) fee allocations could be needed to cover the costs, in order to ensure utilizing the kitchens is legal and safe. Furthermore, the costs for using the kitchens was expensive, eventually contributing to their closure.

Windstead said that outside vendors aren’t interested in providing more fresh food on campus until enrollment reaches a number of roughly 4,000 students. Enrollment last year was at 2,700 students, according to Windstead.

“It’s the same thing this year. But when I see the university giving us a lot of support on our student union building project, and then I see them giving a lot of support for hot food on campus, I think they’re really identifying those areas of growth that can help eliminate the stagnation of our enrollment,” Windstead said.