The Sackville Food Bank is expanding access with a new Community Cupboard, which offers food and supplies to anyone in need, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.<\/p>\n
Longtime food bank volunteers and sisters Tammy Fahey and Jacqueline Fahey are the team spearheading the project, which is currently in its pilot form, with a small re-purposed cupboard set up outside the Sackville Commons Co-op on Lorne Street.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a cupboard where people can come and they can take some food,\u201d says Jacqueline Fahey, \u201cinstead of having to wait maybe until Wednesday when the food bank is open. It just makes it a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to the new Community Cupboard, the food bank is also adding an evening pick up time to its schedule, to make access easier for people with work or school commitments during the day. According to data from Food Banks Canada, more than half of food insecure households rely on employment income, meaning scheduling matters. \u201cA lot of people are working,\u201d says Fahey, they can\u2019t get out [during the day.]\u201d Starting next week on January 17, the Sackville Food Bank will be open Tuesday evenings from 6:30pm to 7:30pm.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the Community Cupboard is stocked with weather-proof dry goods like cereal, soup and pasta mixes, and granola bars. There\u2019s also other supplies like pet food, tampons, and even COVID-19 testing kits. The Fahey team says volunteers will be monitoring the supply closely. \u201cWe have one member that walks her dog up and down here all the time,\u201d says Jacqueline. \u201cSo she can check [on it]\u2026 We\u2019re very quick, very proactive. If something\u2019s wrong, we\u2019re going to know.\u201d They are also open to suggestions for items to include in the inventory.<\/p>\n
Not only can people pick up items at the Community Cupboard, but they can also drop off or trade items. \u201cYou just take what you need and leave what you can,\u201d says Tammy Fahey. \u201cIf people just have things they want to donate, that\u2019s fine.\u201d If the Cupboard is too full for donations, then the Food Bank at 9 Willow Lane can take them.<\/p>\n
For the time being, the Faheys are asking that donations be weather-proof, so excluding cans or jars that may freeze and be damaged. Eventually, an insulated structure which can house a fridge will take the place of the current cupboard. The new structure is being built by a shop class at Tantramar Regional High School, says Tammy, the same class who helped get the current cupboard set up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have heat in it and a fridge so that we can have fresh vegetables and milk,\u201d says Tammy. \u201cSo we can put more in it, but it\u2019ll be the same thing. It\u2019s doesn\u2019t cost anybody anything, they can just come when [they] need it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tammy says that dozens of new households have signed on with the Sackville Food Bank since last spring, and there are people of all ages in need, including couch-surfing youth. \u201cThey are just 16, 17, but for some reason have to be out of home,\u201d says Tammy. \u201cSo this way, they can come and grab something to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely for everybody,\u201d says Tammy. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re a teenager or if you\u2019re 90 years old\u2026 Nobody should go hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Sackville Food Bank is expanding access with a new Community Cupboard, which offers food and supplies to anyone in need, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Longtime food bank volunteers and sisters Tammy Fahey and Jacqueline Fahey are the team spearheading the project, which is currently in its pilot form, with a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":136003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[2019,22486,573,6212,3619,22485],"radio":[126,227],"origine":[120,105,106,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136001"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136007,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136001\/revisions\/136007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136001"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=136001"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=136001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}