Helping hands

Two groups striving to alleviate food insecurity

The Vital Signs Report issued by The County Foundation in 2018 estimated that 10 per cent of households in Prince Edward County could be at risk of having insufficient nutritious food available to them. The reasons can include limited income, high cost of housing, and lack of transportation in that families cannot access fresh, high quality and affordable food without travelling a long way. Over the past three years a number of organizations have responded to the need to provide County residents with nutritious food. The County Food Depot provides any resident who requests it with a box of food staples on a biweekly basis. The Depot operates from the old Picton Firehall on King Street, and residents can either pick up a box of food there, or volunteers can deliver a box for those people who do not have transportation. The boxes typically contain non-perishable goods such as rice or pasta and canned items, but also include some fresh vegetables like carrots, onions and potatoes. A grocery card, valid at local stores, is also included for recipients to buy items such as dairy products or meat, so that they can prepare wholesome and nutritious meals. The Depot has seen increased usage in recent months. “We’ve seen a dramatic increase since the beginning of winter in requests for boxes from clients,” said volunteer Braydon Scully. “We’ve probably doubled since the summer. We’ve been doing 125-plus boxes over the past three or four sessions.” He said the demand is County-wide, although a large number of clients are from Picton. The Food Depot works in conjunction with the local foodbanks to provide supplemental food to its clients, and has a dedicated group of volunteers to operate the program. The County Foundation raised a substantial sum of money through the COVID-19 relief fund to support the Depot, which was also granted a large number of grocery cards at the beginning of the pandemic. “We had over $100,000 in the spring and now we’re down to about $10,000 of those cards left, and we go through about $5,000 every two weeks,” said Scully. “It’s going to get a little more difficult for us to sustain that at this stage, so there’s a high need for people to step up and support food insecurity here in the County. There’s been good financial support, but the need continues to grow.”

(L-R): George Molyneux and Robin Lauer prepare boxes of groceries for clients to pick up at the County Food Depot in Picton.

Food to Share is also working to address food insecurity. Prior to the recent lockdown, volunteers at three commercial kitchens were preparing meals weekly for distribution to their clients. Recently, only the County Food Hub at Sophiasburgh has been open for meal preparation. Diane McDonald is a volunteer at the Food Hub, and her group prepares about 70 meals each week, with approximately 30 of those meals distributed locally in Northport or Big Island, and the remainder being frozen for distribution to the Picton foodbank. She said volunteering at the Food Hub has been very rewarding and she has now made a community of friends. She has also come to appreciate the generosity of local suppliers. “Over the summer, Laundry Farms and Hagerman’s and Greenridge donated a lot. Quite often, local farmers, when you go to buy from them and they find out it’s for Food to Share, they just say ‘Take it,’ they’re so generous.” She has also picked up a number of kitchen skills, especially while volunteering over the summer when a few professional chefs were in the kitchen. “They would teach us things like how to multiply up, how to streamline and make things go faster in the kitchen. They would give us recipes and the little things you can do to spice up a meal.” She was also very impressed with the kitchen equipment, especially the Rationale oven “My cooking skills have definitely improved armed with the ability to operate one of those. It cuts cooking time way down and the dish comes out perfectly. It’s a wonderful, almost magical, piece of kitchen gear.” She encourages people in need to make use of the food programs available in the County. “It just blows my mind that there is food insecurity down here. I wish that more people would come forward if they need it, or even halfway thinking they need it. There are resources here. There’s food available here, come and take it.”