THUNDER BAY – Students in need at Confederation College have another avenue to get financial help.
The Thunder Bay school and its student union have partnered to create a student emergency fund of up to $30,000 to provide financial grants when unexpected issues arise.
SUCCI primed the fund with a $10,000 donation, while the college will match money collected from staff payroll donations through its bread and butter campaign, up to $10,000.
“We proposed the creation of a student emergency fund which would be a grant program to provide funds to students in unforeseen circumstances,” said Thomas McDonald, the student union’s administrator of wellness and diversity.
“We know there are funding mechanisms in place, but they don’t necessarily cover all the things that just happen.”
Examples of situations that might qualify for a grant could be a blown transmission in a vehicle a single parent living outside the city uses to commute to daycare and school each day, or it could cover an emergency flight after the unexpected death of a loved one.
The school’s financial aid department will assess each claim and decide whether or not to give out the money.
The college’s commitment will come from money left over from its recent 50th anniversary campaign.
Dana Levanto, the school’s manager of advancement and alumni services, said when they realized they had a surplus it was a chance to help students in need.
“We felt it was a wonderful opportunity to pay it forward, pay it back to the community by agreeing to match whatever’s been given to the bread and butter fund,” she said.
Students were the obvious choice to receive the money, Levanto added.
“The community has been such a great supporter of ours. The college has been such an integral part of everything that happens in our community, and of course the lifeblood and the pulse of that is our students,” she said.
“Everything that we do here is for our students and our future students.”
The two-week effort, part of the school’s Stock the Bank campaign, will also be used to collect food to line the shelves of Confederation College’s emergency student food bank. The campaign runs through Jan. 19.
