Ask any student on campus and you will find that food is one of biggest things to take into account when writing a budget for the school year. Ask the same students whether they are willing to spend money on healthier, organic food over your run-of-the-mill fast food, and the answer will probably be either a flat “no” or “It’s way too expensive to fit into my budget.”

Enter Sprouts. Since 2004, the club/café/grocery store has become a fixture in campus culture, serving thousands of students each year. This year, President Caitlin Dorward and Vice-President Heather Russell, both fourth-year students in the faculty of Land and Food Systems, have been given the responsibility of running the non-profit, volunteer-driven club.

Situated in the basement of the SUB, Sprouts prides itself on providing high quality, organic products to the university populace. Nearly all of its products are seasonal and 100 per cent local, coming from BC and Washington. Most of the eggs are supplied by the UBC Farm, the rest supplied by a farmer in Abbotsford.

Anything that cannot be obtained locally, like coffee, chocolate and tea are guaranteed to be fair trade. In fact, the coffee comes from an organization in Guatemala and imported by volunteers in Vancouver, to be sold at Sprouts for only 75 cents a cup, making it the most inexpensive free-trade coffee on campus.

Sprouts is an organization completely dependent on volunteers, and with 17 board members and approximately 70 volunteers, this year’s team is the largest in history.

With the construction of the new SUB, Sprouts will be guaranteed a much larger space than its current location, and with help from the Alma Mater Society (AMS), Sprouts will be made more accessible.

The strong relationship between the AMS and Sprouts has paid dividends for the latter, mainly in the form of financial backing. In 2007, Sprouts was $40,000 in debt with very little volunteer involvement. Today, Sprouts is fully volunteer-run and financially sustainable, partly thanks to the money and advice provided by the student union.   “We wouldn’t be where we are without the AMS,” admitted Russell.

Sprouts provides environmentally responsible projects such as the Sprouts Box, a grocery delivery service that provides subscribers with a variety of organic produce, delivered by the AMS Bike Co-op. It also provides Agora, another volunteer-run café in the basement of the Land and Food systems building, with groceries at wholesale costs.

Sprouts also hosts “Community Eats,” a pay-what-you-can lunch every second Friday from 11:30am to 2:30pm. Customers are expected to bring their own containers, and the food served is made from ingredients that were rejected because of cosmetic imperfections, but were otherwise perfectly valid.

The idea of using re-useable containers is just one of the many ways Sprouts promotes environmental conscious living. On average, Sprouts serves 150 to 250 people at Community Eats. With proceeds from these projects, Sprouts is able to fund free monthly workshops as well as keep prices down for customers.  Sprouts has also established the Bulk Buying Club, whereby customers can order directly from their distributors for wholesale prices.

Sprouts is not just a food store, but an example of environmental consciousness for all students to follow. “At the moment, we’ve sort of hit the limit as to how much soup and bread we can serve to the students, so what we are focused on is to get academic involvement from all faculties,” said Dorward.

“It’s important to have that kind of involvement,” added Russell, “because if the deans can get engaged, it brings continuity to the structure of Sprouts, and it would make Sprouts much more accessible.”

Don’t forget to come by Sprouts (located in the SUB basement, room 66) for this school year’s first Community Eats on Friday, September 25, from 11:30am to 2:30pm.  Donations are appreciated, and bring your own containers and utensils!