AMS Food Bank reopens after closing for facility-related issues

Issues leading to the Food Bank’s two-week closure were “tied to the building’s infrastructure,” says the AMS.  

The AMS Food Bank closed for two weeks following an announcement on June 16, later reopening its doors July 2. In the June 2025 Assembly Reports, Vice-President (Operations), Elena Nurzynski, who oversees AMS services, said the closure resulted from “an ongoing facilities issue.” These issues arose shortly after the Food Bank moved into its new location room 212 in the JDUC.

Working to support those facing food insecurity in the Queen’s community, the AMS Food Bank is available for to all undergraduate and graduate students. In 2023, a Shift Survey conducted by the University revealed that 41 per cent of students “sometimes or often worried they would run out of money before buying food.” Earlier into the new year, Kingston declared an emergency as an estimated one in three households cannot afford meals.

“Closing the Food bank isn’t a decision we take lightly because food insecurity is one of the biggest issues on campus right now,” Nurzynski said in an interview with The Journal. “We worked to make sure that we could open as soon as we could because it’s an essential service.”

Nurzynski further elaborated on the reasons that led the Food Bank to temporarily close. “The facilities issue was tied to the building’s infrastructure, and it was impacting our ability to operate safely,” she said.

“So out of an abundance of caution, in consultation with the facilities officer of the AMS and the Operations Officer, we decided to close to address the problem and make sure we were up to our health and safety standards,” Nurzynski said. Further details regarding the close are “confidential” and will be “kept within the service”, according to Nurzynski.

 There was no immediate expectation that this issue would recur in the future, Nurzynski explained.

“Sometimes you can’t predict [facility issues], this [the closure] was an example of that,” she said. “But what we can do is put measures in place to mitigate the risk of it happening again. That’s what we have spent the two weeks that we were closed doing […] We are monitoring consistently, making sure we are being as preventative as possible and taking that which is in our control to prevent it from happening again.”

In order to cover the cost of resolving the issues, “a couple hundred” was invested from Food Bank budget, Nurzynski said the cost wouldn’t result in any cuts or reductions to other areas of the Food Bank’s budget.

“With food bank operations, ensuring that we’re able to provide as much as we can to students is really our mission,” she said. “Obviously this wasn’t ideal, but we’re able to sort it out in a way that it’s not going to impact or take away from the struggles that people are experiencing on campus with food insecurity.”

While Nurzynski confirmed that the AMS itself didn’t run any substitute programs during the closure, she explained that the Food Bank provided information regarding alternative options for those facing food insecurity in the Kingston community.

The Food Bank has since reopened and returned to its regular summer hours.