A message from our Executive Director...
I hope everyone was able to enjoy summer and keep cool on those hot days. We have had a busy summer at the food bank. In June we turned 40, announced our upcoming move to 4 Harvey Street and hosted the Feed Ontario annual conference with 175 participants from food banks across the province. In July CanadaHelps announced that we were one (of two) winners of their Great Canadian Giving contest, winning $10,000. We have been supported with local produce by our gardeners as well as the inmate gardens at Collins Bay and Joyceville institutions.
With the high cost of living more households have been feeling financial pressures. We at Partners in Mission Food Bank feel very lucky to be in Kingston as our community is very generous. We have experienced a 10.5% increase in our food hampers distributed over last year. We have seen growth in all our hamper sizes, but the highest in our family size hampers.
Thank you again for your support, we cannot feed our hungry neighbours without you.
Dan Irwin
What have we been up to recently...
- May 30 - We had a volunteer potluck in our warehouse to celebrate the work we do.Thank you to Greenlees Meats for the great roast beef and gravy.
- July 11 – Joyceville institution provided us their first donation of the season, zucchinis from their inmate garden.
- July 22 – Our garden at Collins Bay Institution, tended by the inmates provided us the first harvest of the season..
- July 19 – Sobeys FreshCo, nominated us for Cadbury Share Goodness and we received $5195 donation.
- Aug. 17 - Greekfest at the Greek church attendees donated non-perishable food or money to PIMFB for entrance. Grand total 1075 lbs of food and $3855.
- Aug. – Medical Arts Pharmacies collected food for the month of August in celebration of the owner Margi Plunkett’s 60th birthday. 470 lbs and $241.
- Sept 7 - 9th - 11th annual Kingston Ribfest & Craft Beer Show: Thank you to Impact Events Group Inc. for organizing another wonderful event, and our volunteers, including volunteers from Kawartha Credit Union! Attendees enjoyed mouth-watering barbequed ribs and chicken, an incredible selection of Ontario craft-brewed beer, plus live entertainment, and a Kids Fun Zone. The weather negatively impacted attendance by 20%, but we were able to collect 1073 lbs. of food, and $6776.55.
- Sept. 8 – Queen’s Engineering Orientation Can Drive (1st year Engineering students) collected 1726 lbs of food.
- Sept. 14 – Queen’s Department of Cancer Care & Epidemiology food drive at Loblaw Princess Market collected 785 lbs of food and $1180.
- Sept. 26 – Volunteer potluck in our warehouse to thank our tireless volunteer teams. Thanks to Greenlees Meat for the roast turkey.
Hunger Action Month:
September is Hunger Action Awareness for Feed Ontario. As a founding member of our provincial association, we proudly support them as we work to raise awareness in our communities and across Ontario. The recommendations:
- Reduce clawbacks and increase social assistance rates to help end the poverty trap. Recommendation: Increase social assistance rates and allow Ontario Works and ODSP recipients to keep more of their money by reducing clawbacks on earned income and other benefits.
- Provide gig workers with the same employment protections as other sectors. Recommendation: With nearly 1 in 10 workers in Ontario in the ‘gig economy,’ classify gig workers as employees to ensure that they receive the same protections provided under the Employment Standards Act, Employment Insurance, and the Canada Pension Plan.
- Make affordable housing accessible so people don’t have to choose between paying the rent or buying food. Recommendation: Invest in the costed plan of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association that makes recommendations for new and renovated affordable housing options over the next 10 years.
- Put people with lived experience at the centre of policy and program design. Recommendation: Include consultation and the perspective of people with lived experience in the design and development of all programs, policies and policy changes, and support initiatives.
Our ask for you, please like and share our messages on social media. We all need to make sure our politicians know that we expect better for our neighbours
New Location: 4 Harvey Street
Planning:
We have been busy working on the planned renovations at our new location and hope to be in there in early 2025. We are most excited about having the space to offer a grocery shopping model to our clients. This approximately 4,000 square foot space will ensure that our clients are inside out of the weather, with the opportunity to choose the food they need and, depending upon variety, the brands they prefer. For efficiency, we will be putting out full pallets (a pallet is approximately 4 feet wide by 4 feet high) in rows. This will reduce the need for constantly stocking shelves, an added pressure we do not want on our volunteers.
Cooler & Freezer:
We will be adding a commercial cooler that is 38 feet by 22 feet with glass doors for our clients to pickup their food. We will have an 18 feet by 36 feet walk-in freezer that will ensure that we do not run out of space as we do currently. These units have a combined cost of $225,000 and typically have a 15-20 year lifespan. This means we have had to estimate how much growth we may incur over the units’ lifetime.
Volunteers:
Additionally, we will have better space for our volunteers to work. Our volunteers have been flexible in moving around in our sometimes very tight space. We have been careful since COVID to provide as much room as possible for our volunteers to work. 4 Harvey will provide longer counters and a better space to sort and cull fresh produce, as well as other foods.
Warehouse:
Our biggest challenge is space and the opportunity to store larger volumes of food when we find our special deals. We have great partners both in our community and outside who regularly contact us. We have often been limited in how much we can purchase as we have not had the space. With the approximately 7,000 square foot open warehouse, we will be able to ensure that we stretch our donated dollars further.
Offices:
Our new office space will be open, enabling all staff to be much closer to each other. This will help us to work together even better than we do now. We will have additional office space that will enable us to have our volunteer tax program onsite and in person. This space will be offered to partner agencies so that they may provide complimentary services to our clients. Examples are sessions for resume writing and interview techniques.
The process of renovating a commercial building requires time and patience. We have been working with Shoalts and Zaback Architects to ensure our design suits our needs and we have the proper documentation in place for our building permit. We have chosen Cupido Construction to manage and complete our renovations who have years of experience with similar projects. Both organizations bring a desire complete our project in a timely manner, within a strict budget with quality work, while helping their community.
Fundraising:
The previous owners of the building Tri-Art, recognized the importance of our work and helped start our building fund off with a $200,000 donation. We continue to approach leaders in our community for contributions towards our project. We are also connecting with foundations and granting agencies to see if we qualify for their funding. We still require about $800,000 more, and your help will get us there.
Our most needed items...
One of the biggest questions we get asked is, "What should I donate?". These are suggestions for our most needed items:
- Money (your dollars contribute to higher purchasing power)
- Canned meat & fish
- Peanut butter, jam
- Stews, canned tomatoes
- Baby food, formula, diapers
- Pasta, pasta sauce
- Cereal
- 100% Fruit Juice
Many Kingston and area grocery stores have a food collection barrel at store fronts that we pick up weekly:
- Bearance's Grocery - 115 Livingstone Avenue
- Food Basics - 33 Barrack Street
- Food Basics - 1225 Princess Street
- Food Basics - Highway 15 Riverview Shopping Centre
- Food Basics - RioCan, 770 Gardiners Road
- Foodland - 3 Manitou Crescent, Amherstview
- Fresh Co. - 2327 Princess Street
- Giant Tiger - 656 Gardiner's Road Riocan Centre
- Loblaw's - 1048 Midland Avenue
- Metro - 310 Barrie Street
- Metro - 460 Gardiner's Road Gardiner's Town Centre
- Metro - 775 Bayridge Drive
- No Frills - Tanya's- 1162 Division Street
- No Frills - Andrew & Emily's - 1030 Coverdale Drive
- Valu-mart - Van Wart's Your Independent Grocer - 235 Gore Road
Garden Produce may be brought only to our warehouse location at 140 Hickson Avenue, Kingston during office hours:
Monday - Friday 8:30 am - 12 noon and 1 pm - 4 pm.
Partners in Mission Food Bank is a proud member of...
