A $3-million grant from the provincial government will help the Mustard Seed Street Church purchase its Viewfield Road distribution centre, where it collects and sorts food donations.
The 19,000-square-foot warehouse space is key to the Mustard Seed’s Food Rescue Project, which collects food from 17 grocery stores and re-distributes it to 46 community groups, schools, non-profits and Indigenous communities.
The agency takes in about 4,000 pounds of fresh food every day, typically items that might otherwise go to waste because they cannot be sold, and delivers it to about 35,000 people across Greater Victoria.
“If we can rescue food, we’d like to give it to people,” said Derek Pace, the food bank’s executive director.
Purchasing the building ensures that the program can continue in the long term, he said.
“If this building was to be purchased as an investment, the rents would go up to market [rent] and that would price the Mustard Seed out.”
The Victoria Foundation, which doles out community grants to non-profit groups across Vancouver Island, will receive the government funding, $2 million of which will be used to purchase the warehouse space in Esquimalt.
The funding will also allow the Mustard Seed to expand education programs such as cooking classes that could lead to employment for some clients, said Victoria Foundation CEO Sandra Richardson.
“We’re trying to move it beyond a food bank,” she said.
“To have a commercial kitchen, to learn cooking and learn about the food industry so it could become an employment opportunity.”
The grant was announced Tuesday by Shane Simpson, minister of social development and poverty reduction, who said there are more than 50,000 people in Greater Victoria and half a million across the province who are experiencing food insecurity.
“That’s too many people struggling to put food on the table for themselves and their families,” he said. “That’s too many people who do not have a reliable access to quality, healthy, culturally appropriate and affordable food.”
The remaining $1 million will be used by the Victoria Foundation to administer the Food Security Provincial Initiatives Fund, which will help identify other food banks and community groups that could use a boost from government funding.
“We’ll be doing some research across the province to look at some of the initiatives that are already happening that may just need the spark of some funding to help them to the next step,” Richardson said.
Donations to the Mustard Seed typically see a dip in during the summer, said Pace, who encouraged people to support the Island’s largest food bank.
“We’re always looking for support during the summer months.”
