Rumours of a porridge thief swept the free brekky community last week after successive mornings saw the porridge stock depleted quicker than you can say “oatmeal.” Breakfast runs from the OUSA Clubs and Socs building from 8:30am every morning, but claims say that the porridge has been gone only 20 minutes in on some occasions. Students hoping to get their fill of oats at the free breakfast service have been sorely disappointed by this latest development.
Critic Te Ārohi snagged an interview with one student who has been eating breakfast at OUSA and then cheekily pocketing some more porridge for their lunch. Creedence* said, “I love free breakfast and am a porridge lover through and through.”
He went on to plead guilty to his crimes: “The most outrageous thing I’ve ever done is taken some of the bread and made peanut butter sandwiches and put some porridge in a container, and then come lunchtime I open the sandwich and then spread the cold porridge on the peanut butter sandwich.” Creedence disclosed that the combination is “quite gloopy,” but he loves it all the same.
Speaking to the breakfast shortages more broadly, OUSA Clubs and Socs head honcho Jamie Leckie told Critic, “Transitioning from a one-day-a-week service to a five-day-a-week service has presented challenges in forecasting the required products to meet demand. Attendance has far exceeded our initial expectations.”
While negative in some respects, Jamie said, “The positive side is that we are feeding more students at free breakfast than ever before, with most days seeing between 80-100 students attending during the hour-long period.” You’d just better hope they came for the toast and cereal.
Ever the free breakfast cheerleader, OUSA Clubs Rep Emma told Critic, “We encourage lots of people to attend free breakfast so that it is more likely for Clubs and Socs to have the capacity to keep their funding in the future for free breakfast.” Leckie confirmed that “we are hopeful to gain additional funding to keep up with the increasing demand,” not specifying if this would include a Goldilocks buffer.
Commenting on the wave of crime her beloved breakfasts have fallen victim to, Emma stated that “hearing people sneaking porridge in their own containers doesn’t seem too bad to me as long as they keep in mind that there are people who do go to free breakfast for reasons such as the cost of living and going for their own wellbeing.” For students facing such struggles, OUSA Student Support also has food bags available upon request.
One free breakfast diehard, Georgia, told Critic Te Ārohi that it was “a way to feel social before studying for the rest of the day” and that “money saved on breakfast ingredients can be spent on coffees and other groceries.” In this way, the service had two key functions, with Emma confirming that “free breakfast is there for students to reduce the cost of living and to give yourself time to begin your day with a healthy routine.”