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At St. Christopher’s Church in Burlington we have a special way to reach out to our community. It is the Halton Fresh Food Box program. This is a program that provides a monthly cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables of excellent quality at very affordable prices to the residents of Halton Region. There are between 14 to16 items in each box – family size is $15 and $12 for a box suitable for singles and couples. The orders for the boxes are taken at the beginning of the month and the boxes are packed and distributed on the third Tuesday of each month. This program is open to everyone, regardless of need. We count on parish and community support as volume of orders begs better cents. The program coordinator, Brenda Moher is a registered dietitian who worked as a public health nutritionist. This job is the key cornerstone which allows us to provide a community program that reaches out to all members of society as we work to make our community healthier through easier access to quality, safe fresh fruits and vegetables. The coordinator works with local farmers and wholesalers to procure the produce; ensures the quality and quantity of produce ordered meets our customers’ needs; organizes packing and delivery of the boxes; sets up community drop sites throughout the region including Burlington, Milton, Oakville, Georgetown and Acton and manages over 60 volunteers. Three years ago the Fresh Food Box Steering Committee which evolved out of the Halton Anti-Poverty Coalition, asked our rector, Rev. Dr. Fred Gosse, if St. Christopher’s would be willing to host the food box program. Fred readily agreed that we could be a key partner in this outreach. Two members of our parish joined the Steering Committee formed by representatives from other local health and social services organizations. Incubation was over a year. In this time, we secured adequate funding; purchased 350 plastic delivery boxes; searched out and hired a program coordinator; established a roster of 40 volunteers from our parish, and on November 18th, 2004, we had our first packing day. We delivered 168 boxes to 6 communities drop sites. Halleluiah! Each month on the morning of the third Tuesday, the parish hall becomes a farmers market. Hundreds of pounds of fruits and vegetables cover the floor – mounds of potatoes, boxes of broccoli, carrots, celery, lettuce, tomatoes, apples, oranges and bananas – all need to be weighed and bagged into family size portions. The boxes are packed in assembly line style with two quality checks en route. At noon clean up crews turn the market back to a parish hall and the kitchen crew serve a wonderful hot lunch to all the volunteers. The program has now grown to 364 boxes as of December 2005. We boast a true assembly line conveyor belt for easier and faster packing. But the fellowship and the feeling of a job well done is still the greatest reward for our efforts. We all know that we are helping our community to eat better through an assistance program that is respectful of the diverse needs of our community. We are able to nurture our community with improved access to healthy food – a truly basic human need.
We now have volunteers from other local churches, high school students who earn their community service hours in a happy, safe environment, new Canadians who come to help so they can give back to their community and improve their English language skills and people who are receiving Ontario Works assistance. We continue to work towards being more inclusive in our outreach to our community. Our program is still evolving. We would like to develop a stronger partnership with local farmers now that we have received ongoing funding from the Regional Municipality of Halton. Increased participation by farmers requires that they can count on us to be an ongoing market. We want to be able to expand our ability to bring affordable quality fresh fruits and vegetables to those whose budgets can’t stretch to cover them at major grocery stores. This group represents approximately 45% of our customers. Some of these families are subsidized through church and community outreach programs. We also want to reach out to more seniors who have mobility or disability issues, presently about 30% of our customers, while being able to include families who are not familiar with Canadian fruits and vegetables. Presently we are working to have our program brochure and recipes translated into Punjabi, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. We count it as part of our success, that while we are still the packing site and host site for the coordinator, we are becoming more representative of the community-at-large. St. Christopher’s is still the nucleus but with a new packing site in North Halton on the horizon, and translation services starting, we feel we have become enablers – after all better health, better nutrition and a better quality of life is everyone’s business. Submitted by Nancy Emerson |
