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Posts Tagged ‘hunger’

Our weekly food program gets a brand-new home

Posted on: April 18th, 2024 by Nellie's No Comments

newfoodbankAt the end of January, our weekly food program moved to a new location inside the Kimbourne Park United Church in the East Danforth neighbourhood, and our team is feeling so fortunate to be able to run our program out of this beautiful, spacious spot.

“The church has been such an amazing partner in helping us along the way — they’re super supportive,” says Amanda Nobile, our Community Support & Outreach program coordinator. “And the space itself has been great. It’s so nice to have a larger space where we can spread out more. It’s been very smooth in the way that we’ve set it up to hand out food to our clients. It’s also just a beautiful, calm space, with a really nice energy. It feels very nice to be in this beautiful place that we’re so welcomed in.”

Every week, 120 families rely on our food program to access a basic human need — that’s as much as double the number we were serving just a year prior. And there are another 60 families we could be serving if we had the resources. Our new, larger location provides the space to potentially expand our program, but in order to do so, we’ll need to secure additional food donations, and have the people power for client administration, food sorting, and cleaning. Currently our team is working on grant applications to help us purchase fridges and freezers for our new location, which would allow us to store more fresh food, and start offering weekly milk, eggs, meat, and bread for our clients.

As with most food programs, we depend on donations from our community and agencies. Every Tuesday morning, our friends at Second Harvest — a food rescue charity — deliver fresh, frozen, and packaged foods. From week to week, we fill food baskets with a wide variety of foods, like fresh fruit and vegetables, pasta and rice, peanut butter, and milk. We round out each basket with stock from our own non-perishable food pantry to ensure that each family receives a nourishing mix of protein, canned and boxed goods, and produce.

While we work towards adding more fresh food to our offerings, Amanda hopes that we’ll be able to start increasing the amount of food we can provide to our clients each week. “I know a lot of our clients go to more than one food bank,” says Amanda. “I’m hoping we’ll be able to eliminate that, that they’re not going to have to run around and go to multiple different food banks — they’ll only have to do a one-stop shop and have enough food for the week.”

Now that we’ve settled in our new location, we’ve been thrilled to see the many ways this larger space can enhance our food program experience and increase the number of families we support through this crucial service. “[In our previous location], we used to only be able to have a few volunteers, especially since the space was small,” explains Amanda. “But now we’ve been able to get volunteers through the church as well, and they’ve been such an amazing help. It’s way less stressful and the whole production of everything is just so much quicker.”

Thank you again to Kimbourne Park United Church for being such an amazing partner, and helping us provide an enhanced food program experience for our Nellie’s clients!

To make a secure online donation to our food program, please donate here.

United Nations says Canada’s Poor are Hungry

Posted on: May 24th, 2012 by Nellie's No Comments

Just prior to Aboriginal Awareness Week, UN special envoy Olivier De Schutter was invited to examine hunger and food access in Canada. After an 11 day mission, De Schutter released his findings on May 16:

“What I’ve seen in Canada is a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples.”

His report also described the situation in many of Canada’s aboriginal communities as desperate: “A long history of political and economic marginalization has left many indigenous peoples with considerably lower levels of access to adequate food relative to the general population.”

In response to the report, the Federal Government represented by Minister of Citizenship Jason Kenny blasted the report’s findings and said “…the contributions we make to the UN should be used to help starving people in developing countries. Not to give lectures to wealthy and developed countries like Canada.”

(image from aptn.ca)

Today, almost 1 in 10 people in Canada live in poverty. Most of them are children who go hungry every day. We see their mothers every week at Nellie’s in long line ups waiting for the food that will provide them hunger relief.

Aboriginal Awareness Week is a time to reflect on the injustices that Aboriginal people have endured since colonization and that continue to this day, including barriers to access food.

For more information on the United Nations report you can view this video from CBC.

The full report is available here.

Women share their thoughts on Supper Drop-In

Posted on: October 20th, 2011 by Nellie's No Comments

Last night we asked the women attending our Wednesday night Supper Drop-In Program what they like best about it.  Here is what they had to say:

“Nellie’s is saving my life. Without this I would be hungry every day.”

“When I step in, I feel that I have a family.”

(Adriana, Nellie’s Community Outreach Worker hosts the Supper Drop-In Program every Wednesday night).

“The staff, volunteers, and students are a part of our life.  Thank you Nellie’s for that.”

“My daughter loves attending the Wednesday Drop-In Program to have a warm and amazing meal and to play with the other kids.”

(Nellie’s Placement Student Anna helps with the Supper Drop-In Program).

Daily Bread Toronto launches Fall Food Drive at Nellie’s

Posted on: September 21st, 2011 by Nellie's No Comments

On Wednesday afternoon Nellie’s welcomed the Daily Bread Food Bank to  launch their Fall Food Drive as well as their new report on hunger “Who’s Hungry 2011: Profile of Hunger in the GTA.”  This annual report is based on information collected from food bank clients across the greater Toronto area.

According to “Who’s Hungry 2011”, the average monthly income for food bank clients is $925, with 72% of this going to cover rent and housing costs. This leaves only $5.67/day for food, clothes and other expenses. Last year the Daily Bread had over 1 million client visits, which is an increase of 130,000 from 3 years ago.

(Executive Director Gail Nyberg, and Acting Director of Research Richard Matern at Nellie’s) 

“Sixty-seven per cent of food bank clients are receiving social assistance of some kind. That means the ‘social safety net’ we supposedly have in this province has serious holes in it, and needs a transformation”, says Richard Matern, Acting Director of Research at The Daily Bread.

The Daily Bread Food Bank has set a goal of $400,000 and 400,000 pounds of food for their Fall Drive, which runs until October 14th. Financial donations can be made online here.  Donations of non-perishable food items can be dropped off at any fire hall or Loblaws, Valu-Mart, No Frills, or Real Canadian Superstore.

Nellie’s has been a proud member agency of the Daily Bread Food Bank since 2001.  Every month they provide us with 1080 meals for the women and children at our shelter.  Their support is so important to us as well as over 170 member agencies across the city.

You can find the full press release on The Daily Bread Fall Launch and Who’s Hungry 2011 Report, here.