Melanie Bedore

Concerned with the accessibility of food within Canadian communities, Melanie Bedore sees her graduate studies as a means of bringing attention to the very real difficulty that many Canadians have obtaining proper food and nutrition.

For her PhD in Geography, Melanie is currently investigating the effects that the closure of one, single grocery store will have on the North Kingston community it serves. Though only one location in a larger chain, the majority of its customers are poor, underprivileged individuals for whom the store is their only convenient, available source of food.

With the store's impending closure, they are faced with the inability of easily picking up something as basic as a carton of milk or a loaf of bread. Melanie's studies bring into question the role that the federal government should play in assuring that Canadians have access to food, and the rights that we have to expect the availability of such resources within our communities. Melanie sees an increasing social disparity between those that can provide for themselves and those that cannot, and in her opinion, "the current state of food security in Canada makes a statement about the value this country places on its own citizens."

Melanie chose to pursue Queen's for her graduate studies because it offered her the funding necessary to conduct her research, and because of the supportive and enthusiastic faculty always eager to guide and encourage her efforts. Though she knows she feeds a personal interest through her graduate studies, Melanie hopes that her research can go beyond the journals and libraries to make a real and significant impact upon the people and communities she works with every day.