| At the time of the initial COVID lockdown in mid-March, we deemed food access an essential service and within days mobilized the necessary resources needed for an effective response to COVID food insecurity in East Vancouver. This COVID Emergency Food Home Delivery Program ensures that food is provided in a dignified way including completely barrier free access, home delivery to ensure safety and health are a priority, and an emphasis on quality and highly nutritious foods. Our hampers are especially curated to support healthy outcomes for receiving households.Many people have expressed deep gratitude for these food boxes. Since our programs started, we’ve delivered 6,600 food hampers. But we have also been able to increase our existing capacity in building a more resilient and responsive community food security program by establishing new relations with food suppliers, farmers, referring agencies, funders, volunteers, and new community members who we might never have connected with in the past. More importantly, we have gained new insights and engaged in many conversations with peers, funders, policy makers and others about the systems that cause food insecurity and advocate for a more equitable food system in the long term. Interestingly, COVID has opened a important policy window to push for the change needed and the GWFC is lending a strong and informed voice to the change needed. 520 Households in East Vancouver Supported 1500 Individuals 218,750 lbs of food distributed (average 30lb/box) 120+ volunteers mobilized 3,600 volunteer hrs logged While a temporary program for us, this response to COVID has been meaningful and important and continues to meet immediate food security needs at the community level by ensuring that the most vulnerable in our community have access to good food. However, as COVID numbers increase, demand for the program continues to grow especially for households with compromised health and facing financial hardship. We now have a waitlist Current funding will last until Jan 1 and we are just awaiting to hear about grant extensions to carry us into the new year. |
Grandview Woodland Food Connection 