The St. Andrews Food Bank is getting closer to becoming a reality.
Organizer Holly Johnson says they had a great turn out at the first meeting last month, they are building a good volunteer base, and they were working on sourcing out a location.
“The locations we were hearing about, ironically, were across the street from our local grocery store. And it just logically didn’t seem to make sense to have a food bank building directly across the street the grocery store. If you think about it, we’d be collecting food at the grocery store, taking it across the street, sorting it, and redistributing it.”
Johnson says she was then sent a link from a friend about a program in Ontario that dealt out user cards, that were worth the equivalent in value to what someone would recieve for food, and works in partnership with local grocery stores.
Johnson says a program like this would allow them to forgo paying rent and power for a food bank’s physical location, and users would be able to purchase food specific to them. If they were diabetic, or couldn’t eat gluten, or new mothers with infants, they could buy food suitable for them and their specific needs, and that way any funds raised would go directly to purchasing more cards.
She says they will be discussing this option further tonight at the next meeting, which will begin at 7pm, at the Saint Andrews Catholic Church, in the Parish Hall.
