By the book

Michelle MacIntosh, Bookstore Manager (right), and Assistant Manager David Barkhouse display some of the items available to low income single parents as Dalhousie's contribution to a government support program (Pearce photo).

The Dalhousie Bookstore is providing a helping hand  to half a dozen low income single parents attending the university this year.

The Bookstore is making as much as $1,200 available to these students for textbooks and school supplies as Dalhousie's part in a Canada-Nova Scotia pilot project. 

That project aims to meet the housing needs of poor, single parent university students by giving them a rent supplement. To qualify for the program, students must be enrolled in university full time, eligible for public housing and approved for Nova Scotia student assistance. The government asked each partner university to contribute some extra form of support to the project.

The idea of $1,200 for textbooks and school supplies belongs to Heather Sutherland, Director of Housing, Conference and Ancillary Services. She felt it would support academic success because some low income students cut costs any way they can, including budgets for textbooks.

This program will really help single parents who are now relying on government support to work hard on higher education as the key to successfully transitioning to independent, self-supporting financial status for themselves and their family," says Bonnie Neuman, Vice-President Student Services.

"Rather than asking students who are single parents to move to assisted housing, this program provides support where they are living, so that there is less disruption for their family in terms of children's school and other support systems."