Oct. 21, 2021

Ask the Seneca Student Federation (SSF) about student awards, bursaries and financial aid, and the elected members and staff will show you the money — $2.5 million to be exact.

That is the amount the SSF has donated in support of Seneca students since April 2020, including $1.5 million for the Seneca COVID-19 student relief fund.

“We had a surplus in our budget — a windfall from increased enrolment this past year,” said Mario Di Carlo, Executive Director of SSF. “Our goal is always to return funds to students through services, activities and financial aid. This time, we added funding for work-integrated learning and new financial aid.”

While this isn’t the first time the SSF has had a surplus or made a large donation to Seneca, it is the first time the surplus has amounted in the millions.

“Each year we put two-thirds of the interest earned in our bank account toward Seneca’s Campaign for Students, and our board would normally top it up to $100,000,” Mr. Di Carlo said.

The latest SSF contribution saw the creation of the Laurel Schollen Award in honour of Seneca’s former chief academic officer, who retired in June. It has also funded awards to help individuals from equity-seeking groups achieve equal access to postsecondary education at Seneca.

Other initiatives and organizations benefiting from the SSF’s generosity include work-integrated learning opportunities, Seneca’s entrepreneurial hub HELIX, the Green Citizen Symposium, the North York Harvest Food Bank, The Food Bank of York Region, the Native Youth Resource Centre and a mural in honour of Indigenous Peoples.

In addition, when many people suddenly found themselves unemployed when the pandemic hit in March 2020, the SSF paid each of its 140 student employees $500.

Ritik Sharma, SSF President and a recent graduate of the Business – International Business diploma program, is concerned about how fewer job opportunities affects students’ well-being.

“There’s food insecurity when students lose their jobs,” he said. “We’ve been providing students with food bank gift cards to help them a little bit.”

Mr. Sharma says the goal for dividing up the surplus funds to cover multiple initiatives at Seneca is to help students cover living expenses and enhance their learning experience at the same time.

“We want to help people with financial restraints and help them with their future learning endeavours,” he said. “All of these initiatives are of importance to our students. We hope this will make different aspects of their lives easier.”