Wednesday, 5/14/97 Pilot food discount program needs student
support ASUCLA will reward patrons for eating meals on campus
By Ankur Patel Some people say that a person’s mind is always on
one of two things – one of these is his or her stomach. In student
government, this is no exception and for good reasons too, given
the bold new revitalization of a part of Students First! – The Food
Discount Program (FDP). The FDP is a member of a family of programs
that lives under the Students First! banner. These programs,
designed to increase the affordability of the university to its
students, include the book-lending program, the campus safety
program, women’s program, and, among others, the Millennium
Campaign, which includes the financial aid increase program and the
fee rollback program, to name but a few. This unique assembly makes
Students First! a growing dynamic collection of resources that
provides direct services to students – a tool to be used in the
struggle for educational access and the inevitable questions of
affordability that go with it. Through book-lending any student
that wishes to participate in the program has the potential of
saving upwards of $300 per quarter. The fee rollback program has
been instrumental in arresting student fee increases to the sum of
$1,400 during the last three years and has the potential of
slashing student fees by 11 percent in the future. However, the
crown jewel of the family is the financial aid increase program
which has seen the infusion of approximately $3.5 billion in
financial aid. One of the newer programs under Students First! is
the FDP, yet it has already had two major victories and a third is
on its way. The FDP was originally created as a response to the
loss of the dorm meal coupons at the hands of the On-Campus Housing
Council. This response successfully managed, through a partnership
with ASUCLA, to rescue the coupons via successful campaigning.
Following this victory, the FDP, not satisfied with merely saving
the meal coupons, embarked on another campaign to increase the
value of each coupon. The end result was a 30-cent increase in the
value of the coupons paid for by ASUCLA at a cost of about $50,000
a year. Despite the cost, ASUCLA supported the idea and allowed the
goal to be realized. In the future it will also be ASUCLA that
allows the goals of the FDP to be realized and students to reap
further tangible benefits. Tentatively planned to begin May 19 as a
pilot program and lasting until June 3, the Food Voucher Project
could lead students to substantial rewards by as early as fall if
all goes well. That is not to say that the upcoming pilot will not
reap any benefits of its own; students will, after all, be
receiving a voucher for $2.50 after they make 10 purchases of the
same value. To participate in the program students do not have to
do anything but be aware of the program and show their student ID
card when making a purchase. The registers will record all
qualifying purchases, and when the required number has been met,
the register will start to whir, whistle, beep and bleep, informing
the person to go to the Bruin Gold office to pick up his voucher.
At the same time the student can have his ID card re-initialized if
he wants to continue to participate in the program. Ultimately the
plan for the Food Voucher Project is to create a fully
institutionalized program running every quarter that entitles
students who eat on campus to be rewarded with a food coupon or
other rebate valued at 10-12 percent of their total purchases, no
catch. Before this can be realized, it must be proven to ASUCLA
that a program of this nature is something needed and wanted by the
students and that such a program will be economically viable to the
association. ASUCLA is a nonprofit organization, so a program such
as this need not create a profit for the association. Still, such a
program should not lead the association to bankruptcy, which is
always a looming threat with the kinds of numbers envisioned for
the institutionalized version of the program. Therefore a pilot is
clearly needed, but more than student participation is needed.
Complaints abound about ASUCLA, but the last thing that the
students should want is to lose ASUCLA, since that would inevitably
mean private businesses taking control of the campus; then, things
would really get bad. The best we can do is improve the ASUCLA we
have, and that is what programs such as the FDP aim to do. To
succeed they need the support of the students. Only by
participating in the pilot will the real goals of the FDP be
realized – namely an institutionalized version offering even more
substantial benefits. The program was envisioned as a mutual
collective investment between the students and ASUCLA. The FDP’s
success lies in the hands of those students who choose to
participate in it. They are ultimately the means to any end they
wish for, and we would hope that their own future is an end they
would wish for. Patel is a third-year political science student.
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