South Van Food Hub
VFR: Tell us about the South Vancouver Food Hub and its history.
Joey Liu: South Vancouver Neighbourhood House (SVNH) has been involved in community-based food security work for over ten years, regularly offering programs like intercultural meals and community kitchens, and leading the South Vancouver Food Network. From 2018-2020 we hosted a Greater Vancouver Food Bank (GVFB) Food Hub at SVNH, which grew to support 500+ households through weekly food distribution.
When COVID-19 started and the GVFB closed its neighbourhood-based distribution sites across Vancouver, this created a huge gap in food access in South Vancouver. SVNH stepped into action and provided a temporary emergency food distribution program to support people in a time of crisis. From that experience we recognized the need for more sustainable food supports and worked with United Way of BC and other organizations to launch the SVNH Food Hub and Spoke program. Since November 2020, we have been running the SVNH Food Hub out of the Langara YMCA. Together with our spoke partners, we are supporting 340 households / 1100 individuals with weekly grocery boxes across 7 locations!
VFR: Your innovative Hub and Spoke food model is critical to the success of your program. Tell us about this model, how it came about, and why it's so important.
JL: Through our experience hosting the GVFB’s Food Hub and coordinating the emergency food distribution program in 2020, where we saw hundreds of people coming to one central location and waiting in line for hours, we recognized that it didn’t make sense nor was it equitable to make food insecure residents transit across town to access food, especially during a pandemic.
Our Hub and Spoke model operates one central Food Hub and 6 spoke locations across South Vancouver. The SVNH Food Hub acts as the centre of operations, overseeing grocery box packing, registration, food shipments and training. We take care of the logistics and send grocery boxes to our spoke partners, who give out the food to community members. This allows our spokes to focus on building relationships with participants. Most importantly, this model allows people to access food closer to home, so they can spend more time with their loved ones and work on supporting their families on their own two feet.
VFR: South Vancouver is a wonderfully vibrant and diverse neighbourhood but accessing healthy food on a regular basis can be a difficult for many people living in this area. What are some of the challenges residents face in South Vancouver, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic?
JL: The area of South Vancouver is made up of three distinct neighbourhoods: Sunset, Victoria-Fraserview and Killarney, which together makes up almost 100,000 people. It’s huge! However, transit is poor, isolation is high and there are less resources and services than other parts of the city. There are a lot of cultural and language barriers in South Vancouver, which is comprised of mostly racialized and newcomer households. Before the pandemic, there was already a high level of food insecurity and inequitable access to services across South Vancouver, and COVID both highlighted and heightened the challenges people were experiencing.
Through the SVNH Food Hub and Spoke program, we are currently providing emergency food access that is culturally appropriate and closer to home. We provide language support, holistic referrals to other programs (i.e. employment programs) and focus on relationship-building to create deeper connections. We practice the approach of ‘a hand up, not a handout’. Over time, our long-term vision is to develop more community-based food initiatives that can improve the food resiliency and local leadership of residents across South Vancouver.
VFR: VFR volunteer food drivers have been actively involved in your Hub and Spoke food program. How has this extra support benefited your program over the past six months?
JL: VFR has been so vital to our program! We basically rely on VFR to transport most of our food coming in and out of the Food Hub. Your amazing group of volunteers supports over 600 people getting fresh, healthy food every week. Doesn’t that blow your mind?? Seriously though, without VFR’s delivery service, we wouldn’t be able to operate multiple locations or reach so many people. This service is essential to our program goal of providing healthy food access ‘closer to home’ and giving people the opportunity to focus on other important areas of their life and loved ones. THANK YOU, VFR and its many wonderful volunteers!!
VFR: How can people support the important work of the South Vancouver Food Hub?
JL: Our main needs are funding, volunteers and transportation. You’re already covering the third need, thank you so much!
We are a small team of 3 full-time staff running the program. Additional funding will allow us to increase our staff capacity and to continue to improve the quality and freshness of our grocery boxes. Donations are always welcome!
To donate: https://www.southvan.org/get-involved/donate/ -- once the page opens, choose #8 South Vancouver Neighbourhood House and leave a note that your support will go towards the Food Hub program.
Lastly, we welcome folks who would like to get involved, especially once things open up in the Fall. Please continue to volunteer for VFR as much as you can, and if you have extra time you can get in touch with our Coordinator Miluska Bravo at miluska.bravo@southvan.org.
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