This past year has been a time of reflection and rethinking for all of us. For nearly 40 years, we’ve been committed to ensuring a food secure community and doing our part to address the underlying issues contributing to hunger and poverty. Many of these underlying issues have been brought to the forefront while dealing with COVID-19 and it has refocused the way that we as a community think about what is essential. The support we’ve received from the community, whether words of encouragement, contributions of funds and food, or in-kind donations, has been heartwarming and allowed us to ensure that we can not only provide safe, nutritious food for people today but have a strong foundation to plan for tomorrow.
Our goal is to provide the community not only with what they need to survive but to thrive. We understand that the issues contributing to hunger and poverty are closely linked, as are the different kinds of assets people need to address them. Receiving safe, nutritious food, learning new skills, and gaining employment experience all grow to create something bigger than the individual asset. To show what we’ve learned about the new way we all think about what is essential, we’re going to walk you through the Game of Life.
GAME OF LIFE: BUILDING ASSETS
Through the Game of Life, we’re going to introduce you to an asset-building model we use to think about how to contribute to sustainable livelihoods for our community. This means working to support livelihoods that are resilient to external shocks and stresses, aren’t dependent on external support, and don’t undermine/compromise the livelihood options for others. The Game of Life will show you just some of the assets community members can build by accessing the programs and services offered at the Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre.
HOW IT WORKS
As you progress through the Game of Life you will accumulate points, which represent different assets. You gain points through learning new skills and gaining resources by accessing the different programs and services offered at the Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre. You can see the points you’ve gained with each asset as the corresponding-coloured apple fills with colour.
In this asset-building model, there are 5 categories of assets:
PERSONAL ASSETS:
motivation, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-perception, emotional well-being, assertiveness, spirituality.
SOCIAL ASSETS:
cooperation, networks, interconnectedness, family support, friendships, relationships of trust, partnership and collaboration, political participation.
HUMAN ASSETS:
skills (technical and interpersonal), knowledge, ability, employability and earning power, good health, leadership.
FINANCIAL ASSETS:
employment/self-employment, available finances, regular inflow of money, credit rating, access to credit.
PHYSICAL ASSETS:
child/elder care, secure shelter, clean, affordable energy, information, banking and access to related services, basic consumer needs, affordable transportation, tools and equipment, natural resources, air, and water quality.
YOU VISIT THE SFBLC FOR AN EMERGENCY FOOD HAMPER
Supportive environment, emotional wellbeing: not having to worry about feeding yourself and your family for a few days
Strong sense of community: You have another client share an item from their Emergency Food Hamper with you
You receive safe and nutritious food.
YOU TAKE THE 3 MONTH LITERACY PROGRAM
Confidence building through the acquisition of new skills
Encouraged to further the skills you learned in the program by applying to WEP
Improve your cover letter and resume through workshops on cover letter and resume writing
Receive help getting ID
You participate in a financial literacy workshop, learn about RESPs, and start an account for your child.
The Saskatoon Inter-Agency Response to COVID-19 (SIRC) is a group of over 50 organizations, including community-based organizations providing front-line services and representatives of government agencies, working together to help agencies serve Saskatoon’s vulnerable communities.
This coordinated effort was especially important in the spring and summer of 2020 during lockdown and closure of services. Recognizing the importance of the work the SIRC is doing, we were thrilled, along with the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundations, to contributed funds to support an evaluation to document and assess the effectiveness of the response.
The SIRC continues to provide valuable information, tools, and resources to support those in our community most vulnerable to the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
YOU FILE YOUR TAXES AT THE TAX CLINIC
Motivation: no interruptions for credits and benefits
Working with your neighbour to support each other while accessing the tax clinic
Income tax filing: access to credits and benefits
YOU TAKE GARDENING 101 AT
THE GARDEN PATCH
Confidence building through the acquisition of new skills
Fourteen-week workplace experience program: learn about gardening, leadership, and cooking skills
More than 10,000 community members served each month!
EMERGENCY FOOD HAMPERS
• 49,482 Emergency Food Hampers provided to the community totaling 737,997 lbs
• 50,337 L of fresh milk provided through our Milk For Children Program
WAREHOUSE
• 71,661 lbs of food provided to other agencies for their own programs/services
WORK EXPERIENCE PROGRAM
• Number of participants that graduated = 17
• Number of participants that found employment = 5
• Number of participants that furthered their Education = 4
LITERACY PROGRAM
• Number of participants that graduated = 11
• Number of participants that furthered their Education =1 (Work Experience Program)
CLOTHING DEPOT
In the 11 weeks, our Clothing Depot was able to open this year, we still had 5,771 visits to our little shop, where community members benefitted from clothing, small household items, cleaning supplies, personal hygiene items, and pet food.
VOLUNTEERS
• 1,156 hours from the Garden Patch
•1 Garden Patch volunteer logged over 200 hours
• 14 volunteers filed taxes for the tax clinic
• 8 volunteers were returning from the previous year
NUTRITION
• Online cooking classes delivered: 45
• Ingredient kits delivered to participants’ homes: 413
• Healthy meals served through our cooking classes: 3,888
• Contactless deliveries of ingredient kits to participants’ homes: 249
• Virtual tech-support volunteers trained: 2
• Online cooking classes featuring local celebrity chef instructor: 2
GARDEN PATCH
• 11,456 lbs of food grown
• 4,521 bags of fresh Garden Patch produce distributed
• 113 cubic yards of compost produced – 300% increase!
• 643 hours of gardening education
• 4 gardening 101 certificate program graduates
COMMUNITY VOLUNTEER INCOME TAX PROGRAM
• 3,243 people served
• $8,731,524 injected into our local economy through tax
refunds, GST Credits, and Canada Child Benefit payments.
Tara Faris-Peters
Sr. Marketing Manager, Innovation Place (SOCO)
Ryan Sampson
Director, Financial Planning & Analysis, ZYUS Life Sciences
Yann Martel
Writer
Heather Kuttai
Writer, Disability Advocate, SK Human Rights Commissioner
Wilton Angus
Senior Labour Advisor, Jardeg Construction
Quinton Osatchuk (Chair)
Senior Manager, Treasury & Energy Systems & Compliance, Nutrien
Bart Voswinkel (Vice-Chair)
Job Developer, CMHA
Laura Pizzey (Treasurer)
Manager, Accounting, Canpotex Limited
Shannon Hood-Niefer (Secretary)
Vice President, Innovation and Technology, Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre
Anna Hopkins
Project Lead, SARC/SARCAN
YOU JOIN THE SFBLC ONLINE COOKING CLASS
Confidence building through the acquisition of new skills
Learning new cooking skills and how to use new technology by participating in the online cooking classes
Cooking class ingredient kits
Your cooking class ingredient kits mean you can use the money you would normally need to spend on that meal on other items.
YOU VOLUNTEER AT THE GARDEN PATCH
Community connection, sense of fulfillment
Tell a friend about your experience volunteering at the Food Bank and advocate for why it’s important
Gain a reference from a Food Bank staff member for job applications
Opportunities to strengthen employment skills.
BONUS POINTS: BY WORKING IN THE GARDEN PATCH, YOU GREW AND HARVESTED FRESH, NUTRITIOUS FOOD THAT IS PROVIDED TO THE COMMUNITY.
Volunteered for Hamper Delivery
Our friends at Brunner’s Construction really stepped up this year, and to contribute their time and resources to help support our community. They helped deliver Emergency Food Hampers to ensure that no one would go hungry during this tough period. A big thank-you to Curtis and the crew for taking action. We couldn’t have done it without you!
Warehouse Space
The in-kind donation of 7,200 sq. feet of warehouse space from Concorde continues to be a game-changer for us. An additional warehouse was also needed, and Concorde once again stepped up to make it happen. With 10,000 sq feet of offsite storage, this warehouse space has allowed us to continue purchasing large volumes of emergency food to ensure we can continue serving our community through these difficult times today and tomorrow. Thank you, Concorde, for your swift and generous action, and to Les and Irene Dube, for your long-term donation of a semi-load of apples and oranges for our Christmas hampers every year!
Milk for Children
Canpotex is a critical supporter of our Milk for Children Program. Along with their generous financial contributions, they have volunteered countless hours and truly become part of our food bank family. Thank you, Canpotex; your support means the world to us.
Ongoing Support
Nutrien’s ongoing support enables 36 food banks across the province to tackle the root causes of hunger and poverty. Over the past ten years, Nutrien has donated $7.5M to support Food Banks of Saskatchewan. We are so thankful for their long-term support and the significant role they play in contributing to food security for the community.
With the additional challenges we’ve faced with COVID-19, there have also been additional supports. For example, the Creating Opportunities Strategy was lucky to receive additional funding from the Ministry of Immigration and Career Training to specifically apply to COVID-related upgrades in technology and environmental safety. This was a huge opportunity for the organization to ensure that participants are learning on technology that is relevant so that when they enter the world of employment outside of our walls (particularly post-COVID) they are prepared for the different types of tools they may encounter. It was equally a welcome opportunity to replenish necessary PPE and improve some of our spaces to ensure distancing and safety continue to be top-of-mind. We are very grateful for this support.
FOOD BANKS CANADA COVID-19 RESPONSE
We also received additional support through Food Banks Canada, which established a COVID-19 Response Fund to support more than 4,700 community organizations across Canada and help them meet the unique challenges they faced this past year.
As more Canadians were experiencing accessing food banks for the first time, Food Banks Canada’s COVID-19 Response Fund ensured that food banks across the country were able to overcome challenges such as adapting operations to keep staff, clients, and volunteers safe while preventing any supply chain interruptions.
Food Banks Canada was also able to divert more unsold food destined for the foodservice industry to be distributed to food banks across the country; a move that supported food banks, farmers, and food processors alike.
Thank you to Food Banks Canada for the chicken we received through the Surplus Food Recovery Program!
This past year we’ve had to look at different ways of coming together as a community, often looking at new virtual ways of gathering. We’re so thankful to all those that joined us in, whether in-person or online, and we’re looking forward to the days when we can all gather together again.
CITY WIDE FOOD DRIVE
In place of our annual City Wide Food Drive, we hosted the Community Click & Pick-nic virtual food drive. A big thank-you to our friends at Saskatoon Co-op, Rawlco Radio, CTV, Pattison Outdoor Advertising, and the Saskatoon Star Phoenix for their support!
MILK MONTH
This year, we received the greatest support ever during Milk Month and raised a grand total of $133,000! Thanks to the amazing matching campaign from our friends at Canpotex and the generous donors who gave above and beyond. With your help we provided 93,365 litres of fresh milk to children and pregnant and nursing women in the community.
PAINT NIGHT
We were so excited to have our first fully virtual event this year!
In February, we hosted a Paint Night over Zoom. It was such a great way to connect with the community and has provided many of our staff with some fresh art for our office walls.
HOLIDAY CAMPAIGN
(All Of Us Unite Against Hunger):
There was no shortage of holiday spirit this year during our All Of Us Unite Against Hunger campaign. During this critical time of year, the community came together to ensure that no one went hungry this holiday season. Thank you to all those who gave, big and small!
YOU COMPLETE THE WORKPLACE EXPERIENCE PROGRAM
On-the-job training, job coaching, access to counseling services
Opportunities to try new activities and be exposed to different environments and job opportunities
Earned Certificates: First Aid/CPR, Service Best, Serve It Right, FOODSAFE
Work boots, work shoes
Provincial Training Allowance
YOU SHOP AT THE CLOTHING DEPOT FOR A NEW INTERVIEW OUTFIT
Motivation, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-perception, emotional well-being (from Buy new clothes for work interview)
Buy new clothes for a work interview.
In addition to our commitment to ensuring a food secure community where all people have access to safe, affordable, and nutritious food; we also believe it’s important to address the underlying issues contributing to hunger and poverty in our community. That is why in addition to our Emergency Nutrition program and the other agencies we provide food hampers to, we also operate a variety of programs and services like the Clothing Depot, tax clinic, Volunteer program, Nutrition program, Garden Patch, Literacy Program, and Workplace Experience program. We recognize that to best serve the community we have to provide a variety of assets for individuals and families; whether it’s learning new skills to increase employability, affordable home goods, uninterrupted tax credits, and benefits, or emotional well-being knowing you don’t have to worry about feeding yourself or your family today. We provide a diverse collection of programs and services because we know that the issues contributing to hunger and poverty as well as their solutions are just as diverse and interconnected.
This past year has been full of challenges, but also incredible moments of collective strength, hope, and joy. We’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity and support we’ve received from the community this past year. Each time we had to quickly adapt, there was always a friend of the Food Bank there to assist and ask us how they could help.
There’s been a lot of talk about building back better, finding ways of coming out of this new normal with stronger supports for all. Moving forward, we’re looking at what our role is in ‘building back better’ and how do we continue to best serve our community. As we’ve all had to reassess what ‘essential’ means and what’s essential for everyone to live an inclusive, sustainable life, we’ve looked at how we have grown over the years and how we’ve responded to the calls from the community for different types of support. Our vision is that as an organization we embrace our role as innovative and collaborative leaders in building an engaged, inclusive, healthy, and empowered community for all. As we step into this next chapter, we continue to be community-driven and see the Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre as a connection point for community members to access whatever they need, whether it’s emergency nutrition, building confidence, or learning new skills.
