CENTRE WELLINGTON – The Centre Wellington Community Foundation (CWCF) has awarded a $10,000 grant with the aim of tackling food insecurity in the area.
“It’s estimated that over 14 per cent of residents in the community are food insecure,” details a Nov. 11 press release from the foundation.
CWCF has provided The SEED with a $10,000 grant to bring the “Groceries from the SEED” program to Centre Wellington.
The grant will help defray transportation costs for an entire year, providing enough support for the program to become established. It’s part of an ongoing effort by CWCF to focus on social determinants of health issues and, specifically, food.
“We know that food insecurity is a complex issue that impacts people in many ways,” said CWCF board member Dr. Peter McPhedran.
“We found The SEED expands the reach of food programs by including people that may not currently be using other services.”
This initiative goes hand in hand with the foundations Food Insecurity survey.
“We were impressed with what The SEED was doing in Guelph and the results they were getting,” said Randall Howard, CWCF chair.
“We found they are reaching a group of people not necessarily being served today.
“The pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity issues,” he added. “We provided a grant from our (Centre Wellington) COVID-19 Community Response Fund to help support this program.
“In the past 18 months, the fund has addressed issues directly caused by the ongoing pandemic.”
“Groceries from the SEED uses an innovative pay-what-you-choose pricing model which allows people to pay full price or receive a discount up to 50 per cent off,” stated Maddie Barber, the SEED’s community resource coordinator.
“Our goal is to make Guelph-Wellington the first community in Canada where everyone has access to good food.”
Residents can sign up as members on the website and then buy their groceries through an online store in the program.
The groceries are then delivered to their door.
“When you shop at Groceries from The SEED, you help people in the community afford good food,” said Barber.
“It takes a community to feed a community,”
For more information, or to sign up for the Groceries from the Seed program, visit www.theseedguelph.ca/groceries.
