The Salvation Army's food bank in French Creek, B.C., is giving clients better, healthier options thanks to a new commercial cooler and a partnership with Thrifty Foods. Instead of composting fresh produce and perishable items such as bread, the grocery store now sends these items to the Army.
A partnership with Thrifty Foods yields plentiful results
Trina Jiggins, food bank co-ordinator, originally got the idea for the food reclamation program after hearing about a similar program elsewhere on Vancouver Island. However, when the food bank investigated obtaining a commercial cooler, they were given a quote of $25,000.
“The unique part of our program is that we built our own 20-by-12-foot cooler using a high-powered air conditioning unit and a coolbot device to regulate the temperature,” says Jiggins. “The one that we constructed, following the Health Board specifications, cost us under $5,000 and it is energy efficient.”
In the first eight months of the cooler's operation, The Salvation Army was able to repurpose nearly $175,000 of usable produce and dairy.
The Salvation Army and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) have agreed to a three-year project that will offer dedicated repair and renewal dollars to residential facilities across the country. The partnership includes $45 million in funding from The Salvation Army and a $30-million contribution from CMHC, totalling a $75-million
According to a recent survey by The Salvation Army, 73 percent of Canadians faced food security challenges in 2023, and 43 percent of Canadians who visited a food bank last year were accessing it for the first time.Eric (not his real name) and his wife found themselves in a situation many Canadian families are experiencing. Fortunately, The Salvation Army was there for him.
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