The United Way has just kicked off its annual fundraising campaign and with it, is looking at its accomplishments of the last five years. One of its successes is its food security strategy. It spends about $500,000 a year on four initiatives: food banks, food rescue, community gardens and community kitchens. Here’s more on each:
Food banks
In 2010, the United Way spent $40,000 to develop a database to track food bank usage in Windsor and Essex County. “It gives us a snapshot of the people using the food bank, how often they use it and their background,” said Lorraine Goddard, the United Way’s chief executive officer. The information helps the charity develop other programs Goddard said. “The data helps us answer the question, ‘What other supports do we need to support these families.’”
In Windsor and Essex County, the Unemployed Help Centre is what Goddard refers to as the “hub” for food bank donations. It collects most of the food, then redistributes it to 18 other food banks in the area.
Food banks are changing too, from offering only packaged and canned food to more fresh food, dairy and meat.
Volunteer Dave Hayes stocks items at the Downtown Mission on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012, in the organization’s food bank. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)
Food Rescue
Greenhouses can’t sell cucumbers that aren’t perfectly straight or vine tomatoes with fewer than five fruit on a stem. Ditto for peppers that have even the smallest of blemishes. That produce used to go to landfill. Enter the United Way’s food rescue strategy. With a refrigerated truck donated to the Unemployed Help Centre, all that healthy produce is now collected. The United Way has also developed partnerships with traditional farms, fisheries, food processing plants and banquet halls who donate their surplus as part of the food rescue strategy. In the last two years alone, about 2,000 tonnes of perfectly nutritious food has been “rescued” – diverted from waste and used to feed people in need. Other food rescuers are included in the program, Goddard said. Produce too far gone to be put on food bank shelves goes to Gleaner organizations that dehydrate it for use later.
Chef Robert Catherine, a culinary instructor at the Unemployed Help Centre’s Plentiful Harvest Program on September 9, 2013 in Windsor. The Plentiful Harvest Program offers free fresh fruit and vegetables to people in need.(JASON KRYK/The Windsor Star)
Community Kitchens
There are 12 community kitchens across Windsor and Essex County – at least one in each municipality – where people can go to learn to cook nutritious meals. Often the recipes use vegetables on offer at local food banks. “What’s the point in giving someone zucchini if they don’t know what to do with it?” said Goddard. These community kitchens also use produce from the food rescue program, she said. “If we get a glut of tomatoes, they make pasta sauce or tomato soup.”
Students Marissa Ippolito, left, Savy Margaret, Samantha Duguay, Payton Mercer and Jasmin Green display food they recently prepared at the Unemployed Help Centre’s Community Kitchen in Windsor. (DAN JANISSE / The Windsor Star)
Community Gardens
In 2010, there were exactly three communal gardens where residents could go and grow their own food. Seeing it as a chance to build neighbourhoods as well as increase food security, the United Way now funds 25 such gardens throughout Windsor and Essex County. Apartment dwellers now have a patch of land to grow their own veggies. Hobby gardeners can take the food home, or donate it to the food banks and community kitchens.
Stephen Johnson, 17, works in the Bruce Park Community Vegetable Garden on Tuesday, July 22, 2014 in Windsor, Ont. The city is would like to see more gardens in the community. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)
