On Tuesday, Simcoe County council voted in favour of funding a new community co-ordinator position to oversee food security county-wide, based on a report outlining a new Simcoe County Food Security Framework from Eco-Ethonomics Inc.
However, some of the local consulting partners say they had little to no input on the framework.
Four area food banks contacted by CollingwoodToday this week claim they hadn’t been notified of the framework’s completion, and most of those food banks claim they received little to no contact from the consultant.
The Salvation Army Collingwood Food Bank is not listed as a participating organization in the framework, however some South Georgian Bay food organizations are listed.
Major Neil Evenden with the Salvation Army Collingwood Food Bank said this week he was dismayed that their organization wasn’t included in the consultation.
“I find it surprising that they didn’t reach out to us considering we are the primary food bank in Collingwood,” said Evenden in an interview with CollingwoodToday.
Evenden said he was familiar with the framework, but doesn’t know any of the details. In regards to the funding being approved for a community co-ordinator, Evenden said the five Salvation Army branches within the county already work together to share resources.
“The biggest challenge I have (right now) with my community partners is the balance between the eight or 10 events we have every month where we sit around talking... which is good, but trying to find that balance for me and my staff when we’re trying to actually do something (is hard),” he said.
While Evenden said he was happy the community co-ordinator position was approved by Simcoe County council, he does have some resource allocation concerns.
“Right now, I’m of the viewpoint that I’d rather see resources being spent to physically help clients than to hire people to somehow try and manage,” he said. “None of us do this exactly the same way.”
Over the past six years since opening their food bank operation, Evenden says his food bank sees about 110 households monthly come through their doors.
“The Salvation Army has been dealing with food security issues across Canada for over 100 years. None of this is new to us,” said Evenden, adding that while he has been working with the Salvation Army for 35 years, his grandparents also worked with the organization in their time.
Helping Hands Food Bank in Bradford said they weren’t contacted at all to consult on the framework, despite them being listed as a participating organization.
“I think, possibly it’s because we are a small, independent food bank, they missed us because we are all volunteers. We have no desire to pay someone to look after us,” said Anne Silvey, president of Helping Hands Food Bank. “My philosophy is, if one of our residents gives us some money, I will spend that on food. I will not spend that money on anything but food.”
Silvey said she feels this isn’t the first time the more rural municipalities are left out of the discussion on county-wide issues.
“In the southern part of the county, especially,” she said. “It’s difficult because we have clients on ODSP, and they have to take a bus to Barrie to get to social services. As far as I’m concerned, that’s unreasonable.”
Silvey said weekly, Helping Hands is open for one hour on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and sees about 75 families come through the doors in that time.
“We have found an increase of seniors that have been using our services here. You also always have the working poor who are working a couple of jobs at minimum wage but they have families and their rents are high,” said Silvey. “When you look at the cost of everything around us, I’m not surprised there’s food insecurity.”
In total, more than 150 different community groups, organizations, politicians and advocates across Simcoe County are listed as being consulted over the past year and a half to come up with the framework.
“My contact on that was the Simcoe County District Health Unit. They contacted me a year or two ago about creating this network, and they did. A couple of years ago we were asked to sign a charter, so we did. In terms of our participation, that’s where we’re at,” said Peter Sundborg, executive director of the Barrie Food Bank.
Sundborg said the numbers at the Barrie Food Bank have been stable for the past five years, with about 32,000 people walking through the doors annually.
He said Barrie Food Bank, along with other food banks in Simcoe County, are members of the Ontario Association of Food Banks. According to Sundborg, currently, the Barrie Food Bank specifically is seen as a “hub,” and is therefore already responsible to distribute some resources around the county.
“So, for example, the Ontario Dairy Farmers donate milk to the association, as the parent organization. They distribute that milk to us with the understanding that I’m then going to distribute some of that milk to, say, Orillia, Alliston and other area food banks,” said Sundborg. “The only (current) co-ordination of food banks, from my perspective, is relationships I have built, or others have built with us.”
“If there is going to be a person co-ordinating food services across the county, then that’s fantastic,” said Sundborg, adding that it was the first time he had been told about the suggestion.
Chris Peacock, executive director of The Sharing Place food bank in Orillia said he was one of the community partners that sat in on consultations about six months ago.
He said one of the biggest ideas he brought to the table was coming up with one clear direction for all food services across Simcoe County.
“There’s a fragmented group of social service programs that exist within our community. We could all be pushed toward the same goals and better partnerships. If we have this framework that we can all reference, we can have those stronger partnerships,” said Peacock.
“The organizations that exist, not just in Orillia but also in Barrie and Midland, they can all pull together and start to work as one, making sure that we’re not working in our own silos, doing our own thing,” he added.
Household food insecurity refers to a situation where individual or household lacks the financial resources to access food. Community food security is a measure of food access and availability at the community level; it studies the local food system to measure the production and provision of food available to the public through retailers, farmer’s markets, community gardens, food programs and emergency food services.
“The general statistic is that about 12 per cent of residents in Simcoe County are food insecure,” said Peacock. “It’s a significant problem that’s tightly tied to income.”
According to the framework, the role of the new community co-ordinator is not to project manage, but to do light-touch co-ordination. The role involves politely prompting stakeholders to complete the work they have committed to, circulating documents, hosting meetings, taking notes and documenting the work. Other roles are to co-ordinate the writing of grants by members and making sure that evaluation data is being collected.
The food security framework, which was presented by Ryan Turnbull, president of Eco-Ethonomics Inc., identifies three main goals for the project:
- to facilitate more presentations in the community to raise awareness and understanding food security,
- to further develop and support initiative in South Georgian Bay to build community gardens at the new Wasaga Beach Affordable Housing Unit as a pilot for future affordable housing projects and;
- to raise awareness around available community level asset maps in Simcoe County to promote greater access to physical food and programming.
At county council on Tuesday, Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman raised a question about what early wins could come out of the creation of the framework.
“I’m a huge supporter of the idea of the county moving into this role,” said Lehman. “My hesitation around the framework and the staff report that’s in front of the house is that, the action today is to hire a co-ordinator. Two of the three goals are about... presentations, communication and framework development. It would be my hope that if the house supports this approach... that the next steps should be more action-oriented.”
“To me, the most important thing is getting more fresh food in the hands of those who struggle to get it,” he added, while clarifying that he would vote in support of the motion. “I would hate to see us spend a year hiring a person and forming a council to promote awareness and not getting to supportive projects that are ready to go today.”
Some council members expressed concern that the funding would be handed over indefinitely.
“With the funding of a co-ordinator, can we have a time limit put on that as far as our funding goes and have results from a year down the road come before this council... before we continue funding this project?” asked Adjala-Tosorontio Township Deputy Mayor Bob Meadows.
“We can certainly do that, but that’s kind of the philosophy of every program we do. We evaluate every initiative and program and if it doesn’t have results, we would cease and desist,” responded Greg Bishop, general manager of social and community services with the county.
County council voted to approve the funding to hire a community co-ordinator and to endorse the community-based Simcoe County Food Council.
To read the Simcoe County Food Security Framework in full, click here.
