By Sheri Selway
Mark your calendar for the North End Food drive coming up on October 26 in honour of World Food Day which is recognized October 16 every year. It was founded by the United Nations in 1945 to make us aware of world hunger and to help us create solutions to this problem.
More and more people are relying on Food Banks than ever before! Rising costs, high rents and stagnant social assistance has made more and more people worry about feeding their family.
Welcome Inn is OUR North End neighbourhood community centre. Welcome Inn works to alleviate poverty, loneliness, and marginalization by offering supportive relationships, promoting wellness and providing capacity-building opportunities. They recognize that food is a basic human right. One of the programs is the Food Access program and their goal is to make it as easy as possible to access, the food bank is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and last year they served over 35,000 people.
On Saturday, October 26, the neighbourhood is again participating in a Food Drive that has been part of our neighbourhood for 11 years and last year we collected approximately 1800 lbs of donations. This is an independently organized food drive in support of the Welcome Inn by the neighbourhood, and not managed by Welcome Inn.
The WEST side of James St will have door to door pickup and EAST of James St there will be a variety of drop off points around the neighbourhood starting a few days before and ending Saturday afternoon.
We are requesting non-perishable foods and toiletries (toilet paper, toothpaste etc.). Welcome Inn is in special need of protein items such as beans and canned fish (tuna and salmon). Monetary donations can also be sent to https://welcomeinn.ca/food-bank/
If you wish to help out with the Food Drive, or have any questions, please connect with Curtis Biehler (curtisbiehler@gmail.com) for the West side of James, if you wish to help collect food or Sheri Selway (sheri.selway@gmail.com) for the East side of James, if you have a front yard for a donation location.
