The GFWSSA is funded through our graduate student union, the York University Graduate Student Association (YUGSA). On top of advocacy services for graduate students, YUGSA offers health care, funding, event space, tax filing assistance, and a food bank (through the York Federation of Students).
YUGSA also registers Departmental Graduate Student Associations (DGSAs) on campus (which is what we are!). Each year YUGSA provides an Operating Grant Fund (OGF) that disbursed in late Fall and early Winter semester. In order to receive our OGF, we must have two council representatives from the program who regularly attend YUGSA council meetings and who attend anti-oppression training at the beginning of the school year. These councillors also have voting privileges at the meetings, and they can have important roles in decision making processes that directly impact us (for more info about being a council rep, click here). Thank you to our councillors each year for making it possible for us to be funded!
The GFWSSA Hive Mind determines how to allocate our funds each year. The funds go to organizing social events with food and tokens provided, sponsoring student initiatives and supporting GFWSSA members in times of financial need.
We also save in order to offer strike support. For example, as a result of many many years of savings, we were glad to be able to allocate over $4000 (on top of the faculty donated $1350) to an Emergency Strike Fund, accessible by all graduate students in our program who were experiencing financial hardship as a result of the strike. We also purchased hand warmers and other supplies for picketers, as well as meals for strike check-in gatherings.
The current (2023-2024) Hive Mind team have been informed that GFWSSA funds are currently frozen at Alterna Bank, and so we are working very hard with past HIve Mind team members to resolve this. This will allow us to be able to continue GFWSSA's traditions of supporting students financially. This will also allow us to receive our Operating Grant Fund from DGSA once they begin to distribute these. We will provide an update once the funds are available.