Sahtu residents open to MLA's food bank idea. But who will do the work?

Heather Bourassa says the food bank she helps run from the basement of the church in Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., has the potential to do more for the community – if it were to have more support. 

She and her friend, Nadine Tatchinron, volunteer to make up food hampers as they're needed. They don't advertise what they do – and they respond to referrals and requests for help. 

"There's definitely a need for the groceries. For, like, homes with unemployment, or just because of the high cost of living. Definitely we have requests for food on a regular basis," she said. 

Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely said he wants to build off existing services – like the food bank in Fort Good Hope, but also the pantry in Norman Wells – as he pushes ahead with his idea for setting up a food hub in the region. That hub would store donated food for distribution on a regular basis to the other four Sahtu communities. 

Food Banks Canada is partnering with McNeely on the idea. Two representatives of the organization who travelled the Sahtu region with McNeely and Nutrition North Canada last week said one of their goals is to identify a champion in each community who will help them set it up.

Nolan Wadsworth-Polkinghorne, a northern programs officer for Food Banks Canada, knows human capacity will be a challenge. 

"People in the North wear a lot of different hats all the time and it's, I think, something I've come to greatly admire about folks," he said. "What I hope to do is make myself available ... and supportive so that we can make things as easy as possible."

McNeely, who also knows capacity might be a challenge, wants to get a co-ordinator to oversee the project.

Food Banks Canada says it can fund part-time staff related to some of its grants, but it can't support full time staff. McNeely said he's talking to Nutrition North Canada about splitting the cost of the position between the territorial and federal governments. 

"We're going to explore and exhaust all options to have a staff member representing the Sahtu region," he said. 

Site for distribution hub not chosen yet

There aren't a lot of details about what, exactly, a food distribution hub in the Sahtu would look like. 

Jason Stevens, the northern network manager for Food Banks Canada, said one of the next steps is to make sure each community is on board with the idea. 

Other steps include letting funders and stakeholders know about the project and ironing out where, exactly, the hub would be. Stevens said Norman Wells is one option being discussed, because of the ability to ship cargo by plane. 

Food Banks Canada has said it will supply the food to the hub, while Matt Bender, an outreach manager with Nutrition North Canada who also joined the tour last week, said his department could subsidize the cost of transporting donated food by $3 per kilogram. 

McNeely said he's been talking to Buffalo Airways about transporting food and to Sysco Canada about buying food in bulk.

There's also a discrepancy about whether people will need to pay for the food items: Food Banks Canada said food will be free, while McNeely said some of the goods will be provided for free. 

"We have to do the calculations and take into account what contributions Nutrition North is going to offer towards airlines. At the end of the day, we would like to see as minimal amount of pricing of products at the community level." 

Stevens described visits to each Sahtu community last week as a listening exercise. He and Wadsworth-Polkinghorne also touted Food Banks Canada's grants – which are separate from the idea for the hub – during those visits. They said the grants are flexible and can be used for a broad range of food security projects, like shelving for food bank storage, to ammunition for hunting caribou and moose. 

'Is this another burden?'

Heather Bourassa in Fort Good Hope says the community meeting there with McNeely, Food Banks Canada and Nutrition North was really encouraging. 

Asked if she had the capacity to grow the food bank she's running now, she paused and thought about how to reply. 

"I do believe that there's a lot of potential for the food bank here to do more. We would have to be more organized and … we would need more volunteers," said Bourassa, who is already wearing many hats in the community including co-owning a business, being part of the local school board, chairing the Sahtu Land Use Planning Board and being a mom.

Tiana Spilchak, of Norman Wells, also wonders who in her community will apply for Food Banks Canada's grants or help set up the food distribution hub.

"Everyone's working to make ends meet … everyone's burnt out," she said. "It's hard to come together as a community when we're all worried about ourselves." 

Meanwhile, Joseph Kochon, the band manager for Behdzi Ahda First Nation in Colville Lake, wondered if what was being pitched would make more work for his community.

"Is this another burden that's going to come to us here?" he asked. "If it's going to be an independent thing and somebody easily running the program and we don't really have a connection to it, then it's OK … by all means, we'll give it some thought."