By Catherine Allison
Eat-in and take-out options for the hungry. Catherine Allison reports.
Even if the kitchen cupboards are bare and the next cheque is days away, people in Ottawa don’t have to go without food.
“Nobody goes hungry unless they choose to,” says Kerry Kaiser, co-ordinator of the Centretown Emergency Food Centre on Bank Street.
That’s because food banks and soup kitchens put food on the table. Drop-in centres, seniors’ centres and community health centres also have programs to combat hunger.
The Centretown Emergency Food Centre, in the basement of the McLeod-Stewarton United Church, provides a three-day supply of basic groceries customized for each client. The food selection varies depending on access to a hot plate or microwave for cooking. If a client doesn’t have a refrigerator, peanut butter on bread, or cereal with powdered milk may be preferred. Kaiser says giving people a choice is important for respect and dignity. It also avoids wasting food.
There are a few rules at the centre: clients must register with photo ID and prove they live in the Centretown area. And they can only get food once a month.
Kaiser says part of the centre’s mandate is to refer clients to agencies that can help with issues such as mental illness or finding a job. She says 70 per cent of the clients come for emergency food just three times. “Then we never see them again. And when we don’t see them, we feel that we’re successful.”
The rest are regulars. “One senior has been coming on the first day of every month for six years.
She’s in tears almost every time she comes,” explains Kaiser. After working for 40 years in a government cafeteria, the woman’s tiny pension makes her ineligible for subsidized housing. Rent gobbles up most of her monthly cheque, leaving only $100 to feed two people. The centre’s three-day supply of groceries helps tide her over.
But it’s not just clients who are struggling to make ends meet. The centre, like many food banks, is facing increasing financial pressure. “We’re seeing a horrible decrease in monetary donations this year,” says Kaiser. “The high tech sector has dumped. Some of our donors are becoming clients.”
Before 2001, the centre had a modest surplus for five consecutive years. By the end of 2001, the books showed a deficit of $4,615 for the year. Kaiser says by the end of July, this year’s deficit reached $25,870.
Cuts are inevitable and Kaiser says that by November there will be fewer options on the food list.
Like 89 other agencies, the centre relies on the Ottawa Food Bank for food support. Best known for its food drives, the Food Bank collects and re-distributes non-perishable goods across Ottawa.
It also “sweeps” seven large Ottawa Loblaws supermarkets, picking up donations of perishable foods from the meat, produce, deli, dairy and bakery departments.
Driver Reg Sunstrom, who has a food safety certificate, inspects the food before he loads it into his refrigerated truck. “We don’t pick up green bread or black bananas,” he says.
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Refrigerated trucks from the Food Bank also pick up prepared foods from local hospitals, catering companies and hotels. Like the food collected from Loblaws, these ready-made meals are delivered the same day to local soup kitchens and emergency housing shelters.
Leftover meals from an upscale Chateau Laurier banquet are often served the next day at the Shepherds of Good Hope.
Buckets of soup from the Royal Ottawa Hospital get ladled into bowls at the downtown Mission.
Colin Chalk, the food bank’s public relations manager, says a $1 cash donation can be converted into $8 of food.
“With the cash donation, we can put gas in the truck and pay the driver and he can then go to pick up $25,000 of donated food. But if we don’t get the original donation, we can’t put gas in the truck.
“Lots of food is tossed away and wasted,” says Chalk. He’d like to expand and pick up much more food, but his four trucks are full, and a new one would cost $85,000.
While food banks only give out a three-day supply of groceries to people who live in their service area, soup kitchens and drop-in centres don’t care how often people come or where they live.
Bank Street’s Centre 507 is a drop-in centre with a self-serve snack program. People can ladle up bowls of homemade soup, make toast and pour a cup of coffee or juice.
The centre also gets fresh produce and baked goods three times a week from the Bank Street Herb & Spice Shop. “It’s a wonderful contribution, because it ensures a steady supply of vegetables for the soup pot,” says centre manager Tracy Davidson.
Davidson says gardeners from the Bytowne Urban Garden, a community garden at the corner of Metcalfe and Catherine streets, also contribute vegetables to the centre.
People on a tight food budget often sacrifice fresh fruits and vegetables. That’s why Olly Wodin, a dietician at the Cooper Street Centretown Community Health Centre, helped start the Good Food Box Program. For $10 or $15, anyone in Centretown can place an order for a box of assorted fruits and vegetables. Buying produce in bulk means people end up paying 30 per cent less than regular supermarket prices. Wodin says between 30 and 50 people use the program each month, some regularly, others only once or twice.
The Centretown Community Health Centre also helps feed hungry people in their collective kitchens, or community cooking groups. Wodin says that two small groups meet weekly in the centre’s kitchen to cook together, share a meal and take a meal home. The four-hour sessions cost $1 and try to teach people the skills and confidence to prepare food at home.
Over on Somerset Street, the St. Luke’s Lunch Club and Drop-In Centre serves breakfast and a hot lunch to anyone coming with an appetite.
Program co-ordinator Maxine Stata says the most popular lunch is Kentucky Fried Chicken, collected from KFC outlets by the food bank’s trucks. The cooked chicken is stored in the freezer until there’s enough to feed about 120, the typical lunch turnout.
“It’s not a treat to have beans and wieners. But KFC? It’s ‘happy times’ stuff,” says Stata.
City funding covers 70 per cent of St. Luke’s operating costs, with food bank deliveries, private donations and fund raising drives covering the balance. For example, the Ottawa Carleton Tigers soccer club drops off leftovers from its Preston Street banquet hall almost every week. Then there are the faithful volunteers, such as Kathy Pritchard, who for10 years has brought in leftover bread and baked goods from a Manotick bakery, and Anne Cook who brings doughnuts from Barrhaven.
KFC is also popular at The Well, a women’s drop-in centre in the basement of St. Luke’s Anglican Church on the corner of Somerset and Elgin streets. On weekdays, the light breakfast and hot lunch programs feed from 80 – 100 women and children daily. Assistant director Kirstie Gray says the numbers are steadily climbing. She blames it on the Harris government’s deep cuts to social programs.
But for many, soup kitchens such as the Well are Band-Aids on hunger.
“But if we want to be able to slowly close these doors,” says Gray, “we have to deal with issues of rent control and subsidized housing and disability pensions that won’t stretch to cover basic living expenses.
How you can help:
Contributions can be made at any of the following agencies
Emergency Groceries
The Food Bank
1317B Michael St.
745-7001
Centretown Emergency Food Centre 507 Bank St.
232-3059
Dalhousie Food Action Group
343 Bronson Ave.
230-3982
Shepherds of Good Hope
233 Murray St.
789-8210