With the purchase of a warehouse in Esquimalt, the Mustard Seed Street Church says it can work with other agencies to increase capacity to feed the more than 35,000 people in Greater Victoria seeking reliable access to food each month.
The Mustard Seed has been leasing the Viewfield Road facility since 2017, but has now obtained funding to secure ownership of what is being called the Viewfield Food Security Distribution Centre.
The purchase, with help from $2 million in provincial funding, will allow the Mustard Seed and its partners to continue to bring in about 1,815 kilograms of “rescued” produce each day (545,000 kilograms per year) from grocery stores — food that would otherwise be thrown away because it is slightly bruised or marked, or in odd quantities.
Fairway Market, Root Cellar, Red Barn, Country Grocer and Thrifty Foods all contribute fresh food items, and all are part of the Island Food Caring Campaign that runs through June 23 to feed those in need.
The $2 million for the centre is part of a $3-million grant for food-security programs supported by the Victoria Foundation.
“We are here to celebrate this purchase of a building, yet it’s a lot more than a simple facility,” Agriculture Minister Lana Popham said Thursday.
“It has remarkable impact on our communities.
“This building is at the centre of a large food-distribution system operated by Food Share Network — a partnership that includes 50 organizations that operate food-security programs in our region, from Port Renfrew to Victoria to the Gulf Islands.”
Popham said the rescued food collected through the system “ends up on people’s tables where it belongs” instead of being discarded.
She said the centre is giving the Mustard Seed, the Victoria Foundation and the Food Share Network the means to be “moving beyond the traditional ideas of a food bank and reimagining food security in Greater Victoria.”
Popham said it ties in with the Together B.C. poverty-reduction program announced in March with a goal of reducing overall poverty by 25 per cent and cutting child poverty in half over the next five years.
Mustard Seed executive director Derek Pace said the new model aims to ensure that people can get food in their neighbourhoods. “Food distribution is being decentralized,” he said. “People can go into their neighbourhood house and find out about programs that are going on there and then pick up food.
“We send it to seniors’ housing and seniors come out of isolation and they cook and they meet their neighbours.”
Now that the centre has become a permanent hub, the Mustard Seed is working with Camosun College to create a program to help those with barriers to employment find jobs in the culinary field.
