$150K announced to boost local food security (3 photos)

In the ongoing campaign to bolster food security for the Sault and district’s hungry, Sault MPP Ross Romano announced $150,000 in support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation for the United Way’s Harvest Algoma Food Resource Centre Friday.

“The Trillium funds were used to purchase two vans and a refrigerated trailer that we can use to haul produce from the district, or to rescue from stores, two 100 foot greenhouses that we’ll be installing this spring, a forklift to be able to take large volumes of food off trucks and a new, large walk in freezer,” said Mike Delfre, Harvest Algoma director of operations, speaking to SooToday.

“Everything we were able to buy with Trillium money relates primarily to food rescue and food production.”

“Food rescue means we rescue food from restaurants and grocery stores or sometimes even people’s gardens or farms in the district, we bring food up here to the Food Resource Centre and process it, then we distribute it to the agencies in our network,” Delfre said.

Those agencies include the Sault Ste. Marie Soup Kitchen Community Centre, the Algoma University and Sault College food pantries, Women In Crisis (Algoma), Ken Brown Recovery Home, Nog-Da-Win-Da-Min Family and Community Services and others.

“We want to do everything we can to support (food security). When you look at local grocery stores, restaurants and all the produce that goes to waste, we want to be in a position to repurpose that food to make sure basic needs are met in our community,” Romano said in a brief speech at the Harvest Algoma centre on Second Line East.

Both vans purchased are brand new, the forklift a used model, both greenhouses are new, the walk in freezer a repurposed unit from a restaurant.

“For the most part, everything was new, and so that means there are warranties, and we’ll have service for several years,” Delfre said.

On clear display, but not related to Friday’s funding, was an aeroponic gardening apparatus on loan to Harvest Algoma from Sault nurse practitioner and entrepreneur Rita Mannarino.

“She put it here as a demonstration unit so people can see what an aeroponics garden can produce, how they work, and consider getting one for their agency or their home. That's the purpose of us being a food resource centre. We can show people how to garden in different ways, in a greenhouse, raised beds, container gardening or aeroponics gardening,” Delfre said.

Prices for such aeroponic units start at $750.

“It would pay for itself roughly in about six to eight months, given the price of produce in northern Ontario in the winter. Right now we have just the one unit, but I suspect in time we’ll have a number of those and we’ll probably put them in our greenhouses,” Delfre said.

The two new greenhouses will be placed in Harvest Algoma’s rear parking lot, along with additional raised beds, to produce food.

“We’re pretty certain we match provincial and federal percentages, which is something in the order of 15 to 18 per cent. People have to make choices, daily, of whether to buy food or to pay for other things, so for us in Sault Ste. Marie that’s something in the order of 10,000 to 15,000 people, and a lot of them are children or seniors,” Delfre said.

“As we go and get more traction and support to add more capacity at Harvest Algoma, we know we’ll start to have an impact. We’re approaching 200,000 pounds of food we have brought into the community from manufacturers in southern Ontario since we opened Harvest Algoma, and that’s additional to what was coming into the community before.”

“One thing we want people to understand is they can do a lot about their own food security,” Delfre said.

“A little garden can go a long way to adding to both the amount of food you eat as well as the nutritional value of the food you eat instead of eating packaged and processed food all the time. If people are curious about ‘how do you grow, how do you garden?’ they can come here and get a gardening, cooking or canning lesson. A lot of those programs are free.” 

Harvest Algoma’s new greenhouses were delivered three weeks ago, ready to be assembled once the snow goes.

Gary Vipond, United Way of Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma District CEO, joined Delfre and Romano at Friday’s funding announcement.

As reported earlier the United Way of Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma District is falling short of its five-year, $6.25 million fundraising target, currently sitting at $4.2 million (not the original $4.8 million figure originally provided to SooToday by the United Way).

“I gave the board several proposals, and after long consideration, the board decided to do a 25 per cent cut right across the board, and that includes our operation and our funded partners, everything. Every dollar we put out is cut to 75 cents. As a result of that I had no choice but to reduce our operation by three FTEs because we don’t have the money to pay them, so that’s the grim reality of that,” Vipond said.

On a brighter note, directly related to Friday’s funding announcement, Vipond said “the Trillium Grant has allowed us to make those purchases that are necessary to the base operation here (at Harvest Algoma) and the greenhouses will allow us to grow food and increase the percentage of healthy food that’s distributed.”

“We estimated in 2018 only about 10 per cent of the food that came through our centre was really healthy food, and obviously we need to increase that percentage and one of the ways you do that is by growing your own, and this (funding) will help immensely to do that,” Vipond said.