An Innovator in Food Security and Poverty Reduction
written by Erika Jacinto, United Way Centraide Canada
Ottawa-based, The Rideau Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre (RRCRC)’s Good Food Box program offers packed boxes with an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables to be sold to individuals and families in need, at less than market price. In 2023, 2,000 Ottawa residents purchased 22.8 tons of affordable fresh produce through Good Food Box, confirming the high demand for low-cost nutritious food.
RRCRC received funding through the Government of Canada’s Community Services Recovery Fund (CSRF), to better integrate its three food security programs so they can reach more people in need.
Market Mobile is a low-cost grocery store on wheels that serves ‘food desert’ communities where fresh food is not easy to find.
Social Harvest grows fresh produce that stocks the emergency food bank.
Good Food Box sells boxes of fresh food at below market prices to anyone in the community. Profits are reinvested into RRCRC’s emergency food supports.
United Way East Ontario has been a partner to the RRCRC for almost three decades. The funding opportunities, networks, and community ties that United Way offers have been essential to the centre’s successes.
With support from the CSRF, the RRCRC can continue to adapt its food security programs to be more nimble, accessible, and responsive to the diverse needs of its clients. They’re actively reaching people who don’t have access to internet or cell phones, supporting seniors who live alone, and delivering to people with mobility challenges at a time when food bank visits are at an all-time high.
One important milestone that the funding has allowed the organization to accomplish is the completion of the construction of an urban farm, in the basement of the Rideau Community Hub for the Social Harvest program, which augmented both Market Mobile and food bank operations.
Regarding installations and equipment and with the purpose of enhancing their service capabilities, they upgraded the Market Mobile truck and installed air conditioning in the food bank, thus improving the environment for staff and beneficiaries.
Parallel to spearheading the development and implementation of a food bank appointment system to streamline operations, their website construction and an order management system for the Market Mobile and Good Food Box programs, they began constructing a kitchen space for food bank users and launched a community meal program to bolster food bank services.
The funds also allowed them to engage with a consulting firm to identify the best long-term solutions for human resources and volunteer management systems that would support the food bank and associated programs. Consequently, they expanded their workforce by recruiting three additional part-time staff members to support the new activities and growing scope of the project.
“Community services are always under resourced and underfunded, so when we have opportunities like the Community Services Recovery Fund, we really try to upgrade our infrastructure and get ourselves set up so that we are more sustainable at what we do.”
The Community Services Recovery Fund was a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits and Indigenous governing bodies as they focused on how to adapt their organizations for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Canadian Red Cross, Community Foundations of Canada, and United Way Centraide Canada, supported close to 5,500 community service organizations through the Community Services Recovery Fund.