why should I vote yes
Student fees are important to us. OPIRG Kingston is primarily funded by an optional fee for students at Queen’s University. Undergraduate, graduate and professional students can opt to pay $4 to maintain us as a resource on campus.
What does my $4 go to?
We use our funding to organize and facilitate the countless events we put on every year (workshops, film screenings, conferences etc.) for which we charge no admission to the public. The only exception to this are the PUSH IT: Hiphop Festival concerts for which tickets are $10. The reason we are able to put on such high quality and important events at no or low cost to participants is because of the $4 opt-outable student fee. Basically, $4 in September pays for access to all of our events for everyone!
Without this funding, we could not organize events such as the upcoming hip-hop festival.
Our funding also goes to sustaining and supporting our working groups. They use the money to run events, undertake projects, and create resources for students and community members in Kingston. For example, funding goes towards purchasing equipment for our radio shows, insurance provision for our community gardens, external training for our environmental action groups or the rental of spaces for events and advertising for their projects.
Volunteers make up the heart of our organization. Volunteers contribute in a wide variety of roles, from initiating projects to fundraising, to event planning, to tabling and promotions. Funding goes to supporting these volunteers and their projects, for example our upcoming Mental Health Zine is a volunteer project that we are excited to help make happen through funding and promotions.
We also have a volunteer-staffed Board of Directors that meets to provide direction to OPIRG-Kingston staff/volunteers. Funding also goes to supporting our permanent staff member who coordinates logistics for the organization and ensures our projects are completed.
Lastly, OPIRG provides funding opportunities to student and community projects that fit within our mandate. OPIRG Kingston has an external funding budget for community based projects of $10 000 a year.
