Stories of Partnership: Central Okanagan Food Bank and UBC Okanagan Faculty of Management

Angela – Welcome, everyone. I’m happy to be here with you today. My name is Angela Han and I’m a community engagement strategist working with the university relations team at UBC Okanagan. I’m joining you today from the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan people. I’d like to begin by acknowledging that true community engagement is rooted in listening, learning, and sharing ways that honor the values and traditions of those who have cared for these lands for generations. 
  
Today’s session offers a space for open and thoughtful conversation about community engagement and the value of reciprocal, mutually beneficial partnerships. We’re fortunate to be joined by a brilliant panel of speakers, including Trevor Moss, chief executive officer of the Central Okanagan Food Bank. With a career spanning 25 years in leadership roles with not-for-profit organizations, Trevor’s approach is guided by values-based principles aimed at helping individuals and organizations thrive. Through his role at the Central Okanagan Food Bank, Trevor actively fosters meaningful partnerships to address food insecurity to support those in need in our community.  
 
Dr. Eric Li is an Associate Professor and Principals Research Chair, tier two and the Faculty of Management at UBC Okanagan. Eric’s Research is centered on community well-being, social entrepreneurship, and sustainable development. He is particularly known for his work in rural health and food security, where he collaborates with community partners to co-create solutions that address pressing challenges such as health care accessibility, food sustainability, and economic inequality. 
  
Dhorea Ramanula is currently the project coordinator for the Kelowna Homelessness Research Center. The KHRC is a UBC Research Excellence cluster. Dhorea has served as the Board Chair and President of various non-profits and is the founder of Hemmings Holistic Healing Center Society, championing inclusive, holistic recovery for women. Up until very recently, Dhorea was a community engagement facilitator, collaborating closely with Eric at the Faculty of Management. 
  
Today’s agenda will guide us through three key areas. First, we’ll dive into the partnership between the Central Okanagan Food Bank and UBCO’s Faculty of Management, learning about the origins and evolution of their collaboration. Next, we’ll explore what reciprocity looks like within this relationship, discussing both its strengths and any challenges that they might have faced along the way. Finally, we’ll reflect on what lessons learned this partnership offers for others, including UBC staff and researchers. 
  
As we consider how to build meaningful and mutually beneficial collaborations. Throughout the session, we encourage you to think about your own perspectives and experiences, as these will enrich the Q&A portion of today’s event and help shape our shared understanding of community engagement.  

So, with that, let me start by asking Eric, “How did the Central Okanagan Food Bank and UBCO Faculty of Management partnership begin, and why?” 
 
Eric – Thank you, Angela, for that, and good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. I should say it is a privilege to be a partner with Trevor and also the Central Okanagan Food Bank in the past couple of years. 
  
So, I think the connections between my research team and Okanagan Food Bank started in 2018 when I started working on a lot of my community engagement projects, and a particular focus on the local food system and food insecurity. Then, I approached the Central Okanagan Food Bank and said, “I have some ideas about how we better manage the donations,” but throughout the years, just like that project and the topic, it keeps changing. Instead of my thinking about how to get more donations and how to get more supports from the community, we started looking to more internal improvement from an operation perspective. And, Trevor and the team really came to us, okay, that would be wonderful but we started looking into the data and how to better manage that and how to better manage the donations to a different agency. And, since then, we kind of start building what we call ‘social innovations’ as a smart inventory system.  

And then, last year, Trevor came to one of my classes and really shared his nonprofit experience and how he is engaging the promotions and strategies in management courses. I think that is pretty much capturing how this relationship began and what would be the current status for us. 
 
Angela – Thanks, Eric. Trevor, can you share a little bit about how you’ve collaborated in recent years and how the partnership has grown and shifted? 
  
Trevor – And first of all, thank you for this wonderful opportunity. Just to share about the collaboration. I met Eric in 2020. I had started two days before COVID hit as I took on a new role. It was an interesting journey, and we’ve never really looked back since then. I started to get to know Eric and his team, and we so value the research piece of it, but as we started to develop this partnership, we were a little bit more up front saying, “Right now, this is what we also need as an organization” and we started to infuse the idea of research into the everyday operational needs of the organization. And, it took a lot of work. 
  
Eric and his team were also very patient with us at the beginning because we weren’t even at that stage where we could infuse all of that information. But the partnership started to grow, and we realized that it was kind of like a give-and-take perspective and we started to flourish in that area with that partnership. 
 
Angela – And can you talk about some of the successes that you realized early on in your partnership? 
  
Trevor – One of the ones that Eric alluded to was we are tracking a lot of donations from an inventory perspective. We did have a warehouse, but we were just tracking it manually. We were losing a lot of efficiency and we realized that we had to start tracking this because there is a value to food—Food Banks Canada actually puts a $3.58 per pound value. So, we had to link that to more of our financials and operational pieces, but we were just tracking it manually. It was laborious, it was time consuming. And so, what we started doing is talking with the team—and there’s even some team members on the call here today—we said, “how can we track this?” To the point now what happens is by the end of the year we can look at an amazing, expanded pivot table and software, and within two minutes I can give that to our accountants.  
 
But let’s be honest, it wasn’t like that at the beginning, and so the research team was so, you know, patient with us, and then we started evolving [the] process and started to do other things; like we brought university students in to actually look at our food rescue model, and they gave us amazing ideas of what to do and how to be efficient, and we actually infuse that into our daily operations. It’s been so impactful. Those are two highlights here in this moment. 
 
Angela – Thanks, Trevor. I was going to ask about how student engagement has been involved in your work, so that’s great. And, Dhorea, you came along a little later into the collaboration, right? Can you tell us a little bit about that? 
  
Dhorea – I did. First of all, good morning, beautiful people, and thank you. I feel very honored to be here. And, Angela and Kat, my hat goes off to you for putting this on and for UBC, both parties, allowing us this space. So, I wanted to start off with that first of all. 
  
And I also want to say to Eric, in my tenure of working [with him], he’s probably been the best collaborator, colleague and boss that I’ve had. And, I’m a mature worker–my family won’t say I am, but I am—and I think it was brilliant. 
  
When he brought myself along and the way that we were able to collaborate—how I look at community engagement and the facilitation piece is that I feel like I take these big, beautiful-brained academia wonderful ideas, and then we make this bridge to connect it to layman’s terms. And, how do we keep that community continuously connecting?  
 
And so, that’s been my biggest thing and Eric just kind of let me fly, which was wonderful, in that we were able to spread the great work that UBC does, the great research that it does, and that we’re deeper and more important than just the data collection and getting a publication to sit on a desk. It’s much richer than that, and we will speak about it later, but I just really want to share that.  
 
And, it’s beautiful when you come from a space where you’re used to working in business (Trevor, as you’d understand) and then you get to be able to envelop both the data, the research, the combination of the connection and what that looks like. 
 
Angela – Would you be able to share a little bit more about some of the specific projects that you worked on as part of the collaboration? 
  
Dhorea – Absolutely. Well, obviously, the food bank is massive. I had the luxury, at the time, of going to Nova Scotia and dealing with the food banks there, so it was really nice to see the way that—and some of our team members are here and, Shivan, I’m going to give you a huge shout out because I’m all about  community and unity—he’s the one that spearheaded the tracking system, which I feel is brilliant. He gave me the luxury of being able to share that with nonprofits and really share something that’s simple, that’s going to up-level what you’re doing. 
  
Also, Eric gave me the freedom to do lots. I did over 200 community engagements in one year last year, and some of them were with, of course, Third Space, This Space Belongs to You, WFN, KWIB, Dress for Success, Mamas for Mamas, Okanagan Lifestyle, Hope Okanagan. I mean, my list is really long. And, of course there’ll be questions afterwards, but what this gift gave us is that we were able to share [with] a wide audience, ‘hey, this is what we’re doing over here.’ 
  
We don’t want to be in siloes and so this is what this looks like when we start to come together and we connect. So, we started off with food insecurity and for veterans, and it just blossomed in that way. 
 
Angela – Thanks, Dhorea. I’d like to just, go back to Trevor for a second. You’ve touched on how the research has been valuable to the food bank, in terms of tracking the data and supporting fundraising. Are there other ways that the research has benefited your organization? 
  
Trevor – Yeah, I think no matter what size of organization you are, from a charitable organization perspective, I mean, research is invaluable. The problem for a lot of charities and organizations is they don’t have the time to connect into that research, but yet they need it. 
  
Like, one-third of our income comes through grant writing, and so research is so critical. When I went into the food bank, they didn’t have a grant writer, so I created a unique partnership with a student from UBCO where we did a bit of community engagement grant writing. And I know that she also benefited because she was doing her master’s degree, so that’s where the give and take took place. We started to infuse research because it gave us a better footing to actually put a case forward, but what we realized is a lot of people were just after the research. And, what we said to them was, ‘it’s got to be a partnership because it’s got to work for us, too.’ As we developed and blossomed that relationship, one of the most beneficial things that we’ve done in the five years is it ended up being like a community partner-in-residence thing where students, from a marketing perspective, gave their feedback to the food bank and then my team just ran with it and [we] didn’t even have to do it. And it was such a gift for us.  
 
I think we’re going to talk a little bit about that later and I think I’m getting ahead of myself—I’m getting excited here, you know—but that’s some of the things that [makes] research so valuable, but we don’t always have access to it or even the capacity to do it—that’s what Eric and the team at the university gave us. 
  
Angela – Let’s explore how you make sure the relationship between the Central Okanagan Food Bank and the Faculty of Management is reciprocal and mutually beneficial. Is it something that just happens or did you need to work on it? What are some of the factors that contributed to building trust, and what does reciprocity look like in this partnership? Dhorea, I think you have something. 
  
Dhorea – Yeah, I know my head’s popping off. I was going to let Eric go first, if you want to. 
  
Eric – Well, I will say true partnership is like what Trevor mentioned. It’s not talking about, “Oh I have wonderful research questions,” and I go to a partner organization and say, “Can you ask your team or maybe your clients to fill in the surveys?” And then I get the data and I go back to my office and publish a paper and never see my partner again.  
 
Again, to me, that is taking from the partners and it’s not the way. We make mistakes, we learn from the process, but I think more important is really [to] talk about understanding—what our partner needs or our society needs—we have come together to build a better system, to support vulnerable populations. 
  
I still remember, Trevor, when you go to the class and talk to the students, I think one team is talking about, “Oh, [how is] our food bank … different from the Central Okanagan Food Bank?” when the answer is really talking about why the food bank exists—it’s because of the problem that not just 1 or 2 but thousands of individuals experience in our society. I think that part of education and communication needs to be reinforced in all these community engagement projects: that … these organizations are not just like standalone organizations, they exist with a purpose, for a reason, and these are our organizations for that. 
  
And [when] I build my partnerships with nonprofit organizations, I really build on that mentality, so we come together to be a better society or a better community for that. And, again, sometimes we [have] different opinions or different ideas. I think, deep down, it is really [about] what we really want to see, what we want to lead and partner on, and we will come back to the community partner invested in these projects. I also put together—because one thing I also realized with the capacity components, [and] with Trevor talking about one third of their annual budget is allocated to pretty much grant writing, so staff time—we have to really pay full awareness of those capacities … It’s not Trevor’s job description to support UBC research; they see the benefit of being partnered with a research-intensive university, but, at the same time, I think, for a researcher like me … it’s also we see the benefit of partnering with wonderful community organizations.  
 
But that would be going back to [how] do we build trust and how we build relationships, but I would like to have Dhorea join and share your opinions, too. 
  
Dhorea – Eric, I completely agree with you. I’d like to take it a step further because I’m very heart centered. And I really believe that, when I step into a space, (a) I want it to feel safe and (b) I want it to have deep reciprocity. So, I know that we all know the meaning of [reciprocity], but I think it’s the basis of it all, and just for my own self, I looked it up today and it’s: the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit, especially privileges granted by one country or organization.  
 
So, where I come from is UBC and UBCO are very privileged; we’re not only lucky to work here, live here and engage here and share that knowledge, but when we walk into a space, we have to look at that privilege [and make sure we’re not coming in] as an authoritarian.  And if anything, I’d like to come in as how can I support, how can I help, how can I be a part of what it is that you’re doing and listening? What is it that you need that I can give to you, as we have this mutual partnership? 
  
And I think if you don’t have that, you have nothing. It’s like any relationship, you must massage it, you must feed it good food, you must say that it is everything to you because, while you’re there, if you look at how important right now data collection is and research is, just even from the internet point of view, if we don’t start to take care of it at the very core, we’re going to lose it. 
  
So if I’m with you and I’m sitting beside you and I’m saying I would like something, I’m going to ask, “What is it that you need? How can I fill that space?” But deeper than that, “how can I build this relationship? How can I build trust?” We may be doing this today, but you may need something from me three months from now. 
I’m going to pick up the phone or answer the email, I’m going to circle back and I’m going to thank you, and I’m going to continue to check in and see, ‘does this feel right with you?’ just like we do with Trevor—”Trevor, does this feel appropriate, please review this, please give your acceptance, please say that it’s okay.” If it’s not, let us know where we need to guide and change and shift in order for this to have true reciprocity.  
 
And I would almost come from the point of not being in the point of privilege, even though we are—and, of course our first thought is how do we make UBCO, and UBC, look in the best light—but at the end of the day we’re human, so I also want to look myself in the best light. And because I’m gathering data or research, or whatever I’m needing from you, I want to make sure I elevate and celebrate you in the best light, so I think this is such a deeper conversation than folks need to have. [This] isn’t transactional, this isn’t a one off; this is how do I really solidify those deep roots and continue this? Just as long as the university has been here, how do we create that relationship? 
 
Angela – Dhorea, I completely agree with you. So, you talked a little bit about the importance of providing honest feedback, when it’s needed. Can you talk a little bit about that? 
  
Trevor – I’d like to give you some honest feedback right now. I don’t agree with anything that Dhorea said just then, so like, I mean, come on (laughter). I’m kidding, I just thought I should do that in the moment.  
 
But, in all seriousness, I think what we learned early in the process—probably a year in with Eric—because we felt so fortunate to have this relationship, we realized that we needed to be a little more honest to say this works, this doesn’t or we can’t see it. Let’s actually have the conversation.  
 
What we learned is we had to keep the end in mind, not the beginning, but the end. And so that’s where we started the conversations. I did take Eric up on a couple of coffees, there’s no doubt about that, and I think that’s where we grew in the relationship. I felt comfortable enough to say, “Okay, that’s amazing, but I don’t see how that fits in our scope of work right now.” And then we started to work through it.  
 
We gave some honest feedback, and then all of a sudden it started to grow, mature, and then I really felt on both sides of it, it was that give and take. Collaboration is not always easy.  
  
It’s an amazing thing, but it does take time, it does take effort and you have to actually grow it, and water the seed, if I could use that, and so we did and then all of a sudden it became very practical and amazing for us as an organization. 
 
Angela – I’m going to turn it back to you, Eric, any further thoughts on how this relationship works to build trust? 
  
Eric – Well, I’d say I probably echo what Trevor and Dhorea said. I think listening is very important—we all have ideas but, at the same time, you have to listen to your partners. And there’s the practical: is there a priority, is there something we can work [on] together? If not, then I would say that we have to make a critical decision and [we] would end the project. 
  
But, at the same time, it doesn’t mean end the relationship because I always say that if the relationship’s there, the opportunities will come eventually. We just need to pick up the other things, or maybe kind of really think about how to reprioritize our things to do; or, how we can work together in a more meaningful way. That is a learning for both of us. 
  
I will say, Trevor, you’re right. It took years, maybe more than a year for that. We really kind of tried navigating [how] we work together in a better way. But, when we look back at that one and a half years, this is not waste because it’s really helping us to build or to rethink how a good partnership, a strong partnership will mean to us. 
  
I would encourage the audience, if you are in the middle of building a partnership, in the beginning of building a partnership [and] being a good listener, and don’t feel bad if you really say, “Oh, this project isn’t going to work out.” If it does work out, then wonderful. If it doesn’t work out, you learn from that. I think that’s very important to make that [point]. 
  
Dhorea – Could I just add to that, Eric? In our journeys together, we’ve met with some resistance from our indigenous partners. I’m Métis, so I get where there was some pushback for not wanting to have digital information put on. We had some surveys that we did for one of our projects, and I wasn’t getting my usual, “Sure Dhorea, we’ll say yes” because I’m such a cheerleader. And so, what I realized is part of that listening was understanding that Indigenous folks don’t have a big trust, neither do BIPOC—often the marginalized folks don’t—and so how do we shift that to still include, engage, but meet folks where they’re at? And this is pivotal.  
 
What we did is we went to the ethics board [and] asked them, “could we put it in paper form?” and we then got more surveys than we were actually anticipating simply because I listened, understood, and then asked. I knew it wasn’t normally done, so I was taking a bit of a risk, but it was worth the risk because not only did everyone feel heard in that geographic [area], they understood, and what they said was, “Oh, Dhorea listened, took a chance, and then came back and said, ‘I’m coming with my heart in my hand. Here’s paper, would that work?’” And it worked.  
 
So, again, I can’t stipulate enough that if you don’t understand the partnership that you have or that you’re trying to create, ask and then listen and pivot. There’s always a solution. Some way, somehow, we can work it out together because if you have two willing participants you can come up with a solution.  
 
And so, if you take anything away from what community engagement means and what partnership means and what reciprocity really, truly means, is how do I meet you in the middle; how do I come forward more than what is needed in order to make this happen—for you to get your needs met and ours as well? And I mean, how great would we be as a society if we could do that? I know I’m a big thinker. Just don’t listen to me (said jokingly).   
 
I really want to share that because I think we’re missing that right now; we’re all missing that connection and we want it. We just don’t know how to meet each other there, so if you lean in deeper and you listen, the answer is going to come. It’s going to happen. 
 
Angela – Thank you, Dhorea. What you shared is so important. Staying on the subject of challenges, what were some of the challenges of maintaining this partnership? Are there any that you can share? 
  
Dhorea – Trevor, don’t throw me under the bus, please (laughs). 
  
Trevor – No, I won’t. Only one, that’s it, and I’ve done that already for today (laughs).  
 
I think some of the challenges that we experienced, and I’m going to come outside of just our relationship with Eric and Dhorea, we do have a lot of requests that come in for research and collaboration and partnerships. One of the challenges we see is people come in with a fixed idea, and they’re saying, “This is what we want from you.” And to be honest we learned quickly, like, that’s not going to work. 
  
The other thing that we started noticing as well, and these are challenges so I’m always a little hesitant to talk about it, but we started having conversations with people, researchers, and then they took that information and then all of a sudden there was publications out there and we’re like, “Whoa, okay, like we weren’t given credit.” We realized at the beginning of these partnerships [we’re] upfront now saying, “we want to partner with you, so let’s give credit to both sides.” I think that that’s important as well.  
 
And so I think that was some of the unique challenges. I think the other thing that I would share with everybody, if I can—with some sensitivity—is [we learned we] were more open to people that were coming in that knew us, like they actually did the research on us. They actually were willing to come in for a tour, or they knew our programs inside and out, and you could tell they had done a little bit of work; and, we could pick up on that right away. And when even some of the students were coming saying, “We’re doing some of these master programs or studies or PhDs,” we actually infused that in because we could see they believed in us and they knew about us. 
 
Angela – I did hear that the Central Okanagan Food Bank receives a lot of partnership requests, not only from UBCO, but also from other educational institutions, including some from outside of BC, so what made you say yes to Eric and Dhorea when they approached you from the Faculty of Management? 
  
Trevor – I think they came in with a practical plan and picture. It was relational, there’s no doubt about that—we’ve highlighted that already—but even at the beginning stages they were willing to be adaptable. But, it was the foundational discussions at the beginning, before it ever became solidified, what actually just pushed us over the edge and we’re saying, “Okay, let’s do this.”  
 
So, we [probably] get an email a week from students across the country or certain departments. We can’t always fulfill all of them, but we do actually look at all them. We just don’t say, “Oh, well, we’re not going to do that,” But if it does align with our purpose and our initiatives, then we will absolutely look at that for certain. 
  
Dhorea – Also, you know, Eric’s a great leader in the way that, you know, we’ve all volunteered at food banks, Helen’s Acres, you know, like, we come in and … we get dirty and, for lack of a better, more eloquent way, it’s boots on the ground. It doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor or a professor or you’re a community engagement facilitator or a research assistant, if you can, like Trevor said, do the research, be engaged, understand who the players of the game are, [if we’re going to break it down that much,] then like get involved, right?  
 
We all want to feel some form of, ‘I’m included in this.’ And so, how do you get included? You show up and you say, I’m willing to pull weeds or I’m willing to, you know, bag food or whatever it is, and leave your ego at the door. I mean, it’s basic relationship one-on-one, but I think we’ve come far from that. 
  
So we just need to circle back around that and say, “What would engage me? What would make me say yes? What would make me lean into that energy a bit more?” And, again, it’s just understanding and understanding where you’re going in just because you have an agenda does not mean that that is what you need to do, right?  
  
You need to, again, listen and ask what’s needed because you’re not just taking. It’s very, I think it’s important. And I love that you highlighted that, Trevor, because it does make a difference. 
 
Angela – For sure, ‘relationship 101’, but I agree with you so much about the importance of digging in. I was at [a] community engagement event recently with Eric, and we arrived a bit early and he immediately jumped out of the car and started setting up, like, helping the organizing team set up, so I completely agree with you about the importance of showing up for others’ events and digging in.  
 
Eric, are there other ways that you can think of in terms of, you know, honoring the partnership and finding ways to respect their time and expertise in the relationship? 
  
Eric – Well, I’d probably talk more about the community partner-in-residence program and last year I invited Trevor and a few other community partners to come to my programs and my class to really kind of share their experience with our students. At the same time, it’s really kind of about giving some topics to the students to work on, to address—going back to Trevor’s points about some organization-related type of challenge. And I find these are very important to build that dialog and also the relationship because now it’s not just like the research or go and collect data, let’s say, but actually we are sharing how our food bank is contributing to our society with a wider group of audience and our students. I think for me that I put my research hat on and also my educator hat on is so important because the students might not even think about the food bank, but the reality is that we do have students that go to [the] food bank and ask for support or experience food insecurity. I think drawing that line is very important for universities to build that.  
 
And then the other component I would like to say is really acknowledging Trevor’s and other community partners’ time for that. We do provide some honorarium to really say thank you, not just write an email, “thank you all for that,” so I think that’s also giving our community partner some different thought because I think the first time I go to drop off [an honorarium] and how many hours, how many days or if they’re half days that we try to craft that relationship, and capacity is very important.  
 
We have to really respect if our community partner … wants to step in and help us, no matter who’s doing the research or being a partner or mentor for our students, we can’t expect Trevor is going to quit his day job and then come to the university 40 hours per week to do that. So that’s very important to navigate what would be the boundary, what would be the ballpark time commitments and capacity? Are we talking about just Trevor or maybe other team members can also provide some support. I’d make it very instrumental in a way. If I know my partner organizations can contribute four hours per week, then I will build the partnership based on that time commitment. 
  
And I will try to find ways from my own research funds to provide that honorarium because that is acknowledging the time and also the commitment and building a good relationship as well. And to me, for that is also giving travel. Again, going back to the yes no questions—if you know that you have one day per week that’s to support, let’s say, a university partnership, [this] also gives our community partner a sense of the time needed for [other commitments]: “okay, I already committed three hours with Eric’s [team] and then so I might have another five hours max to help other research teams”.  
 
I think it’s very important to go to those operations [and] decide, for this partnership, what makes sense. I can’t expect I’m sitting in Trevor’s office 24 hours per day and then, vice versa, having a community partner go to the university 24 hours per days … I think navigating, you know, what makes the best partnership based on the capacities, based on the expectation is very important to create success [and] also a long-term partnership because we can keep asking more and asking more and come back and ask more. I think sometimes we make mistakes because I said, “Oh, Trevor, I love you for that” and then say, “Okay, can you do this, do that, do this, do that?” And then they start saying no, no, no … which is critical. 
  
Dhorea – Can I also say that what was cultivated in those rooms by those students was pretty spectacular! Not going to lie. We were all moved by it. I know that all the partnerships talked about it afterwards because the view and the perception and the way that Eric and everybody else at UBC has cultivated students, for them to think outside the box, to be brilliant, to have a different perspective, a different generational perspective. 
 
What’s hip, what’s happening? I don’t know what [all] the cool kids are doing right now, but they told us and what a great perspective and what a shift in thinking, especially for nonprofits. That is so invaluable because we’re doing this all day and the students go, “Oh, try doing this. Look at that. Oh, that’s a different perspective. Look at that, it’s a different color of green.” Do you know what I mean?  
 
What that gave all of us; I saw we were looking at each other going, “what just happened right now?” Like it was pretty brilliant, wouldn’t you say, Trevor? And so that’s the piece I want to talk about. So yes, we asked Trevor to show up, but we gave the students something to work with and what they gave back was tenfold. Absolutely. Yes, it was for their curriculum, but they got to choose which partner they decided [to go] with. So again, that’s reciprocity in-itself right there. Do you know what I mean? And it was, [pretty] mind blowing. I was very impressed. 
  
Trevor – Maybe if I could just add, give it a little bit more context, the community partner-in-residence [program] was absolutely, in my mind, a game changer over the last five years with all the infusion of the partnerships. And, I think to allude to what Eric was saying is he was smart enough to see the bigger picture and also gave us a lot of time. I knew for months in advance that this was coming, and we blocked it out in our schedules because we felt it was critically important. 
  
And then as we moved into that, it was in one of their marketing classes, I think there was 15 or 20 different groups that came back, and we actually got SWOT analysis on our marketing and what we could do for our food bank. Because, remember we’re a charity, but we have to run it like a business. You know, our budget this year is $4.5 million. That’s the things that we’re working through right now, so we were willing to give the time upfront. But then, at the back end, what really surprised us is I was handed six different SWOT analyses, creative things that my development team could do, and within a week they were implementing those things. And, they didn’t even have to do it [the analysis]. And I was like, “Wow, okay, that absolutely hit the mark.” My team’s like, “This is fabulous.” And so it just, it was fabulous. 
 
Angela – I’m so glad the students were able to add value to the work that you do. That’s amazing. Before we leave this topic, I just want to explore—maybe I’ll turn the question to you, Dhorea—are there any ways that you can share with us to ensure that a community partner is supported and doesn’t get burned out? 
  
Dhorea – Absolutely. So, the biggest thing is I have a little way that I do things. [I] first invite conversation and just see if this is a good fit for them and what does that look like for them? I’m asking those deeper questions of “what do you need from us? What would be of value?” You give me the dates and times that work for you, and then I reorganize my schedule. I give them a lot of advance notice of what we need. It’s not tomorrow or yesterday because that, especially in nonprofits and charities, creates panic because we run off dopamine and crisis all day, so we don’t want to do that. 
  
We want to have a really receptive audience, whatever that looks like. Again, asking what they’re going to need from this: so, here’s the outline, what would you like to see getting out of this? I often won’t go in and ask right away. I’ll go say, “can we have coffee? Can we go walk and talk? How’s your schedule?” And, if I hear that they’re overwhelmed, I might say I have a thought process, but I’m not going to do this right now. Maybe we’ll circle back next year or six months from now or whatever.  
 
And then, again, really listening to what the needs are, and then implementing that. And you’d be amazed how much a thank you card or a call, an actual call, to say thank you or to go back in-person and just really, ask, “did this meet your needs? Is this what you were wanting? Is this what you envisioned to have happen?”  
 
Sometimes it’s 101, but I think we get lost in, “We’ve got a project. We’ve got a goal. We’ve got to hit the markers. We’ve got a time limit, we’ve got this much grant money and we got to go,” but you lose everybody. You might get one and done, but that’s what you’re going to get. And no one’s going to leave happy, really, because, you know, deep down, there wasn’t this give and take. And so, I think it’s just really important, it’s the small things that folks remember. 
  
You know, Maya Angelou says it best: it’s not what you said that people are really going to remember. It’s not what you did. They’re going to remember how you made them feel. And so, I want to make people feel that this was valuable for them. And so, I think that that’s the most important part. 
  
Eric – I echo what Dhorea says, [I] always say it’s [about] reflecting, kind of like your partnership always grows. And I will say it’s very important that when you’re having your conversations with your partner, no matter how the conversations go, sometimes you might want to take some time to be reflecting, “Okay, why is my partner actually saying ‘no’ to me this time? Is there something I can do or is this not the right time, not the right fit for them and their priorities?” I think that reflective moment is extremely important to build a stronger partnership in the future. [If] you just say, [okay], I got rejections here and there and you start cutting off the line. I mean, to me, your network for community engagement actually starts shrinking because you keep cutting ties to each other. 
  
But I will say oftentimes our community partner does not really mean [no, full-stop–they mean] I want to see you, just not working on this together, but actually working on something else together. I think, to me, that reflection and also the navigation is very important for community engagement and that would be my thought. 
 
Angela – Let’s explore for the final portion [what] can UBC staff and researchers learn from your partnership? We’re looking for some concrete tips on how we can do community-university engagement in better ways. So, in terms of building and sustaining reciprocal community-university partnerships, what advice do you have for UBC staff, faculty and students? 
  
Eric – I would do the first thing, which will be listen to your partners. So, having said that, Trevor, can you share some from a partner perspective with us.  
  
Trevor – Yeah, I think, once again, we’ve already reiterated this and I’ll do it again, the coffees, the honesty, the flexibility, I think is such a key thing. The biggest thing is when you’re working through whatever research area you’re looking at, I would say get to the organization, for certain, have the conversations. Lots of other organizations do this as well, but remember there’s also, in behind an organization like ours, I have 6 or 8 key coordinators that are on staff, and not everything goes through me. I really try to funnel that out to them. They’re amazing people. Like, I’ve got a director of development or a director of operations, and so what I’ve also been able to do is infuse those relationships and say” “have coffees with them as well.” And what I think has happened is they can give more hands-on, practical advice than what I can because I’m not always on the floor.  
 
So, I think what we learn is the university students came in and they were making all of these hampers, right, and volleyball and basketball teams came in, and it just [infused] the staff and created such excitement. And also it helped them with the demands that they were experiencing. They were then more open to the request because all of a sudden they were like, “They actually do care about us. They’re actually doing the hard work.”  
 
And then from that, I think over the last four years, we’ve actually hired 8 to 10 different students. We hired one for research, in the PhD area, another one in their Master’s, there were 3 or 4. We gave them short-term contracts because this is what we needed. I mean, this is outside of our student hires for the summer grants, we just infuse that in there. So I’m just trying to give some creative ways to say this is how you could look at it, that’s just some of the ideas off the cuff here. 
  
Dhorea – I have some ideas. I know, you’re shocked, right (laughs). Okay, so one of them is “walk in with not what can I get, what can I give?” I think that’s massive. I will say, when I came to the university, Angela and Kat (from UBC Community Engagement), thank you because when I got here, it was very siloed and crickets. I was all excited. I emailed every community engagement facilitator that I felt was along the journey with us, and I heard back from no one. And, working from home, even though you’re a community engagement facilitator, we’re usually the outgoing kind of types, and we usually need that kind of connection because that’s why we’re so good at what we do. But if you don’t have that, it takes the wind out of your sails. 
  
So I would really invite starting actually with the Community Engagement [Network] and then work your way out from there as you gather steam and you gather confidence and you understand, and you have that connection.  
 
A big thing is see if you can go in with offering something to whatever agency you’re going in with. We do it in Indigenous communities all the time. We never walk in empty handed. It doesn’t need to be big, it can be something so small, but it shows, again speaking about what Trevor was saying, you’re walking in, you’re understanding your landscape, you’re coming with an offering, you’re showing reciprocity, you’re showing respect.  
 
The other big thing is if you’re dealing with nonprofits and charities, I do walk and talks. I say, “Can I come in for like two hours or an hour or whatever? But you know what, don’t sit at your desk. You do whatever it is you’re doing.” I’ve done it with outreach. I’ve done it with anybody else—just shift yourself and go into their world and make yourself accessible. I’m happy to bag groceries while we’re talking. I’m happy to fill hampers, if it’s still an hour of your time. But now you know I’m invested. Now you know I’m not taking up your time. I’m still getting possibly even more information and a better relationship because I’m walking beside you. I’m not requiring you to take your attention away from what it is that you’re doing and in your busy day. 
 
I’ve got a list of other things, but those are some of the really basic, important things that really you walk in and all of a sudden barriers start to drop because you’re invested and you’re saying, “I’m actually fully present and I’m here, and how can I serve?” Really, at the end of the day, a community engagement facilitator is a person of service because [we want] to share this message with these folks, and this is where we’re building the bridge. If you come in from that mindset of “here I am to serve,” it shifts everything it, really does. 
  
Eric – Well, I would like to add a few things when we talk about community partnership, or community engagement. The first thing is now we have to embrace what our partner is doing for our community. It is very important to really come to think about why the organization exists and how they support our community in good ways. I think really embracing the value [of] our partner organizations, [and what] our partners bring to their community for that is extremely important. That’s the first part.  
 
And the second part, I always say that universities, [we] are working in our own silos, our ivory towers … I would say to just take those things down. When you go to the community, we are equal, we are the same. We are exactly the same human beings. And I always say this, the university, like our food bank, will stay in our community for years, for decades, and we bring different values and I think, to me, [what] values we can bring to each other, what values we can bring to our community is very important to setting up how we can come together, how to maximize our streams and also leveraging the kinds of things we bring to our community is extremely important.  
 
We have wonderful examples for that from a student, or the researcher, or the community partner when we are really thinking about these human beings [coming] together and that’s to think creatively and then to improve what is going on in food security or poverty or health. And then I think that would be extremely crucial as to where to identify, okay. “What is overlapping between us?”  
 
We constantly say thank you to Trevor for that because the food bank is hiring a lot of our students and keeps building that education and also the career path. I think that’s also a very important component to the point that our community partners also will be the employers of our students, our future students. And I think that would be very important to understanding all these relationships is not just talking about the one-off partnership we are talking about here or collaborations, I think is very important to think a little bit, okay, how we are living in this ecosystem and how we contribute and supporting each other. And I think that would be one of the parts I would like to share with the staff and also the researcher at UBC for that, because it’s very important to have that mindset. 
  
Dhorea – Trevor we really have to put our hats off to you because you’re feeding and sustaining and creating community to our humans. And is there anything more important than that? 
  
Trevor – Yeah, it’s a privilege to serve, to see the impact. I wish I could always take people in behind the scenes and see the client’s faces, the stories, the impact – remember, that’s the end in mind. 
  
And then, even right now as we’re pushing through, the one thing that we’re really keen on is more healthy foods. We’re developing some good research and initiatives in the area of agricultural, in the area of produce, making certain that our families, our children—like 44% of the 12,000 people we are feeding each month right now at the food bank, and that does not include partner agencies, 44% of them are under the age of 15. Like another area in research we did and we had our students look at is we had to take on a new program called Food for Thought, and we’re now in 40 different schools right across from Lake Country to Peachland. They came back with plans and they said this is what you should do to have healthy meals and menus, but they also came back and said this is how you promote it. So thanks, Dhorea, for that.  
 
And I want to make certain to all the people in this room: your research is invaluable. It really does help us and we really are thankful for that opportunity and we don’t want to take that for granted because we are pushing a little bit saying, give, give, give, but we’re willing to give, too, because that’s the beauty of partnership. And, then hitting the end goal and making a difference in people’s lives—I think that’s the thing. When you don’t look at numbers, but you look at transformed lives, that’s why I’m in this. Because when I was 14 years old, my dad got injured. It’s shaped my life. I’m from rural Newfoundland and there was no food bank, but people dropped off a turkey for Christmas or they dropped off a meal of codfish and it transformed my life because I realized people did care. And this is what it comes down to. So, thank you. 
  
Angela – So, can I ask what’s next for your partnership? 
  
Eric – We need to grab some coffee. (Laughs) 
  
Dhorea – Don’t ask Eric that. (Laughs) 
  
Eric – Well, I think maybe one thing I’d just add to that, Trevor and I are sitting on the Kelowna Food Table, which is a larger group of stakeholders in our community supported by United Way, and I think that would be our next step and how we are expanding our partnership to become part of that bigger ecosystem. 
  
Going back to Trevor’s point and how we serve our community better, how we build a more resilient and strong, more sustainable food system for our community. I mean, we know that COVID and all the kind of bad news we are experiencing, food is getting more expensive and [same] for the housing. And more people go to the food bank and Trevor presented the numbers for that, which is shocking compared to pre-COVID, but are we going to see a kind of downturn in the next few months or the next couple of years for that? I would highly doubt; having said that, it’s just now we need to provide more support. So, the support will come from multiple stakeholders, multiple organizations, but I think that would be the next step is now, okay, we are all part of this community and how we can build a stronger and bigger ecosystem to make more impact, to make sure it’s not just like everyone working in their own silo. And I think that’s the danger. That’s my worry for that, because we have so many agencies, so many community organizations, so many new ideas are coming out of it that if they are not working together, we are wasting our resources and time because we are just overlapping with each other. I think that would be my sharing. 
  
Trevor – Yeah, I just think in reference to the future partnerships, first of all, I want to say that there’s so many amazing organizations out there and that we’re not the only ones that are doing food insecurity. We partner with 50 other partner agencies that are doing amazing work, and so I just want to acknowledge that. I know I’m more speaking from our experience. We’ve partnered with the United Way. We’ve partnered with lots of different organizations in this area. So I just want to acknowledge that because it’s not just us that are doing this. 
  
I think the biggest thing that we’re looking at right now and, and the biggest need for us is our goal is to create more of an agricultural food hub kind of model and concept, and we’re working through that right now. So we are looking for a couple of partners for research, academics or faculty, that might want to come on board with that because this is where we see the need. 
  
We do a lot of food rescue, but we also need to pull the amazing produce out of the ground that’s not getting processed. We call it the ugly food, but it’s got the same nutrition, the same value, those types of things. One of the strengths of our organization is building out the infrastructure to actually handle that so it can be distributed to our clients, but also to other partner agencies. So, that’s one of the things that we are looking at and we’ll need to partner. 
 
I think the other thing that we’ve talked about, Eric, is more of these community partners-in-residence. I think we’re going to expand on that because I think it was so valuable.  
 
So these are just a couple of things that pop up in my mind. 
 
Angela – Thank you. Trevor, it sounds like you have a beginning of a wish list there for UBC.  
 
Well, thank you to our incredible panelists, Trevor, Dhorea and Eric, for sharing your insights and experiences today. And to all of our attendees for your thoughtful participation. 
  
We’re grateful for the opportunity to come together and explore the impact of community engagement at UBC here in the Okanagan.    

This podcast was produced by Kat Cureton, Angela Han, and Oliver Mann, and edited by Ryan Brown. Special thanks to Eric, Dhorea, and Trevor for sharing their stories with us. Thank you for joining us.