Increasing food insecurity in Winnipeg has forced some support organizations into bigger locations and others to seek government grants to finance their operations.
Agape Table broke ground Thursday at a property next to its current location for a new space to better serve the ballooning number of clients it feeds.
The non-profit has outgrown the basement of Wave Church on Furby Street, which it has been renting for six years.
“We need a bigger space and more places to store food because the demand just keeps going up,” said executive director Jim Steep.
In 2019 Agape Table served bagged breakfasts — soup, sandwich, pastry, food and a drink — to between 200 and 300 clients each day. The number now is upwards of 900 people; on Aug. 27, it distributed a record 1,010 of the meals.
The plan is to have construction completed by sometime next year, enabling the non-profit to move to seven-day operations. Currently the bagged breakfasts are distributed Monday to Friday between 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. As well, about 150 clients pick up food hampers Tuesdays and Thursdays between noon and 2 p.m.
The new building will have a dining area, a bigger kitchen and cold storage. There is an existing building on the property that will remain for use as office space.
Food Banks Canada reported that in March 2023 there were nearly two million visits to food banks across Canada, a 32 per cent increase compared to March 2022 and a 78 per cent increase compared to March 2019.
Statistics Canada recently reported nearly 25 per cent of Canadians will need to access food-assistance programs in the next six months.
“With the cost of everything these days we’re expecting demand to go up a little bit gradually, and definitely because of the holidays,” Steep said.
At the Christmas Cheer Board, executive director Shawna Bell is preparing for a tsunami of applications once phone lines open Nov. 5.
Bell expects between 250 and 300 applications each day. The number of requests last year hit 20,500, a record.
The organization had to cut off applications Dec. 21 because it ran out of food.
“We couldn’t even make it to Christmas,” she said.
Because of the unprecedented need, for the first time in its 105-year history the cheer board is looking for government grants to help pay for its operations.
“It’s been a real challenging time. … The funds just aren’t there as they once were,” Bell said. “The need is just there so much more.”
The non-profit is also reassessing what it includes in hampers to be less holiday-focused and include more pantry staples.
In the meantime, Harvest Manitoba is undertaking a feasibility study for a “food-transformation centre,” which would partner with local farmers to use their surplus for its operations.
Harvest’s current building is “bursting at the seams” and an increased demand for service means the need for more space, president and CEO Vince Barletta said.
Harvest serves approximately 50,000 people across Manitoba every month and Barletta isn’t expecting that number to shrink any time soon.
“Typically, as we head into the winter, in general, those numbers climb up, and, like other organizations, there’s no reason to believe that’s not going to be the case again this year,” he said.
In its last fiscal year, Harvest received $40 million in food and monetary donations, which are critical to its operations; the organization doesn’t rely on government grants or subsidies.
“The reality in Manitoba here is that, sadly, we have no reason to believe that we’re going to start seeing demand go in the other direction. … This is why we need to pivot the way we do things.”
The food-transformation centre would be able to accommodate a greater capacity to bag potatoes, chop and freeze fresh produce and have an expanded commercial cooking facility.
“The idea is to ultimately reduce our reliance on food purchasing,” Barletta said. “Purchasing food is something we’d rather not have to do.”
Harvest expects to spend $4 million on food this year.
nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca
Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer
Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who reports for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom in 2023. Read more about Nicole.
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