one by one®: Nanaimo Foodshare
The mission of Nanaimo Foodshare is to empower community members with skills, tools and access to local and nourishing food. It accomplishes this through a variety of programs, including Good Food Box (GFB), which relies on about 50 volunteers who meet
weekly to pack 700 boxes of food. Andrea Huhn, Good Food Box program coordinator, was excited to receive a one by one® grant to purchase thank-you T-shirts for the volunteers.
“The Good Food Box program is not a food bank where someone has to prove they need financial assistance, although we do provide some to vulnerable children through local schools,” Huhn said. “It’s more about using community buying power to offer fresh fruits and vegetables—to anyone who is interested—at a much lower cost than buying them at a store.”
Volunteers appreciate receiving thank-you T-shirts
Once the boxes are packed, volunteers transport them to “pick-up depots,” where people can pick up their food orders. Other boxes are delivered to locations like local schools mentioned above.
“The GFB has helped out so many families,” Kristan Vanden Hoek, child youth and family support worker, said. “Every week, the students that I support will ask me about the ‘big bag of food’ that comes weekly and when they will be getting it. This is an extremely important program, as grocery prices are at an all-time high right now.”
Farm provides food and learning opportunities
Nanaimo Foodshare grows some of the produce for the boxes at its farm and prioritizes using other local produce as much as possible. The farm also offers a lot of hands-on experience and serves as an educational tool for schools and the community at large to learn where food comes from plus how to grow food. Other programs are available to teach people how to prepare and cook food.
The nonprofit also offers employment programs for people ages 15 to 55 with barriers to getting a job. Individuals apply to get into the program and then receive paid training to learn skills that can help them find jobs available in the community, including positions in food service, agriculture and landscaping.
A note from Cheryl
It’s great to see a community using its collective resources to address hunger and offer healthy food to everyone. We’re glad to have provided thank-you T-shirts to the volunteers who are integral to the sustainability of Nanaimo Foodshare. To learn more about a one by one grant, visit onebyone.4imprint.ca.