A partnership between the City of Cambridge, the Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank and a charity that provides relief services around the world is employing 10 local youth this summer to help package and distribute staple food items for local families in need.
Canadian charity GlobalMedic brought its Grassroots Revolution McAntony’s Menu program to Cambridge last month after recognizing the impact the pandemic has had on local food security.
The charity, which operates more than a dozen similar programs throughout the GTA, estimates that before the onset of COVID-19, about 20,000 households in Waterloo Region struggled to put food on the table.
Now, it says, rates of food insecurity have been on the rise, and despite provincial reopening, families are still going hungry.
Called McAntony’s Menu, the program uses GlobalMedic’s existing supply chains to purchase 50 lb bags of pantry staples like rice, lentils and kidney beans, which are then repackaged into individual 500g bags.
The bags are then boxed up and delivered to the Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank and Food Bank of Waterloo Region to support their clients.
Repacking and donating food in this way allows GlobalMedic to produce food for a third to a quarter of the retail price, said executive director Rahul Singh.
“We’re able to package 500 grams of green peas for 51 cents, which is a quarter of the price,” Singh said.
But while distributing more food is the main goal of the program, it’s also about giving people choice and dignity when they come to the food bank, especially now that one in four families are accessing the food bank system, many of them for the first time.
The packages closely resemble what you’d see on a store shelf instead of typical plain packaging supplied by most food banks, Singh said.
“If this site can produce 100,000 pounds of food, that puts a huge dent in addressing food scarcity in the region.”
"The neat value add”, Singh said, is the opportunity the program gives local youth.
With the city’s help, Preston Scout House is serving as the program’s operation headquarters, and 10 Cambridge youth have been hired through the Canada Summer Grants program to weigh and package the food items.
Nicole Misic says she’s “very grateful” knowing her first summer job has been able to contribute to helping the community.
Since its launch in February 2020, the Grassroots Revolution McAntony’s Menu program has packed and distributed over 1 million pounds of food across the province.
Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank executive director Dianne McLeod said the program’s arrival in Cambridge couldn’t come at a better time.
Although the number of Cambridge residents accessing the food bank is gradually returning to pre-pandemic levels, McLeod said she’s hopeful the program will continue locally beyond the end of the summer.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Cambridge food bank increased emergency food hamper distribution from eight times a year to once a week to keep up with demand. That equates to about 1,500 food hampers a month.
“We’re really putting priority on nutritious food this year,” she said.
Education programs at the food bank have also helped food bank clients gain a better understanding of how to cook nutritious meals with foods they may not be familiar with, like lentils and chickpeas.
The wide variety of nutritious staple items also cater to the city’s growing newcomer population, most of which aren’t familiar with North American pantry staples like Kraft Dinner.
“This is more familiar to them and they eagerly take it,” McLeod says.
While touring the operation at the Preston Scout House on Thursday, Cambridge Mayor Kathryn McGarry said she knows there’s a tremendous need for programs like this in the community.
“I think it would surprise all Cambridge residents to see who is accessing the food bank,” she said, adding she expects the need will continue long after the pandemic because of the rising cost of living and lack of affordable housing.