Good food

Good Food Box volunteer Rosemary Istead packs boxes at Hillier Hall

Cooking classes coming to help people eat healthy

Once a month, truckloads of fresh fruits and vegetables are delivered to a community centre in Belleville, where dozens of volunteers are ready to unpack and distribute the pallets of tomatoes, cabbage and apples into boxes. These are, in turn, delivered to communities across Prince Edward and Hastings Counties as part of the Good Food Box program.

The program has been around for 20 years. In the County, there are three outlets for these boxes. Anyone can order them in advance, paying wholesale prices for fresh produce. This can be especially handy when the grocery budget gets tight.

Surprisingly, while the program has been ongoing for several years in Picton and nearly a year in Wellington, demand is not high. There could be a few reasons for this.

Rosemary Istead, who delivers the Good Food Box into Wellington and Hillier, says she thinks there’s a misconception that it’s only available to food bank users.

“That’s the main misconception, that it’s for the people at the food bank,” says Istead. “But it’s not just for that. You want affordable, fresh fruits and vegetables, and that’s what you’re getting. Affordable. So unless you’re making all kinds of money, that probably is going to come in handy.”

But Ruth Ingersoll of the Quinte Community Development Council (CDC), which runs the Good Food Box program, says part of the problem is people don’t know what to do with the food when they get it.

“A lot of people were saying they didn’t participate in the program because they didn’t know what to do with fresh fruits and vegetables,” says Ingersoll. “I don’t think that’s just a socio-economic issue… a lot of people are going out on their own and becoming independent, still not knowing what to do with fresh fruits and vegetables.”

So about six years ago, the CDC launched Community Kitchens, a short, free cooking program that allows com communities to learn to cook together. Last year, the HUB hosted the first Community Kitchen program in the County. Sparse enrollment meant that was the last event until today, when a class will be hosted at Hillier Hall.

Ingersoll hopes advertisement and word-of-mouth will bring more people to the program, which offers people invaluable cooking skills and also brings communities together.

“People come together,” says Ingersoll. “This isn’t all about facilitating and teaching so much; it’s about community. And it’s about people sharing what knowledge and skills they have. Because everybody brings something to the table.”

Eventually, Ingersoll would like to see the programs reach people across the County, especially those who are isolated in what has been called food deserts, places not close to a grocery store or other place to purchase food.

“We’ll just have lots of little nucleuses of programs everywhere around Prince Edward County. We have churches, we have community centres, we have schools in every little community,” says Ingersoll. “And if those programs and services were run out of those places, people could access programs in their own communities and transportation would become less of a barrier because it’s available right there for them.”

Participants at the first class will cook using ingredients from the Good Food Box, and leave with an invitation to the second class, a bag of kitchen supplies, a cookbook for basic cooking and a $10 gift certificate for a Good Food Box, which can fetch a medium-sized box full of fruit and vegetables, about a $20 value at the grocery store. Participants of the second class will also leave with a slow cooker.

Ingersoll says she also hopes people leave the class with more confidence in their culinary skills, and even arrange monthly meetups to continue cooking within their communities.

While supporting programs that help manage food insecurity is important, she sees the CDC’s role as more long-term. It’s the reason users pay for the Good Food Box, which is open to anyone, regardless of income.

“We do need emergency food programs. And we do need food banks and meal programs,” says Ingersoll. “But the second piece to that is that people need to learn skills, and we need to build the capacity so that people can learn to either cook or grow their own food. That’s where all of the CDC programs enter [in]. We’re helping people to help themselves and become more self-sustainable.”

Participants must be over 16 and preregister. They can do so by contacting CDC Quinte at 613.968.2466. Anyone can order a Good Food Box. In the west of the County, contact Rosemary at 613.399.2467, and in Picton and the east, call Janet from Community Living at 613.476.0323 extension 226 or Donna from the HUB at 613.476.8142.