The Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Association Fresh Food Basket Program provides an anonymous, dignified and sustainable strategy to improving access to good, healthy food. We see an average of 60 families weekly, distributing over 350 portions of fresh food.
This program does not seek to solve food insecurity. Poverty and the inaccessibility of our food systems are complex issues, and cannot be solved with basic needs programming. However, we hope that this program allows the families that access it to feel more at ease about where their groceries will be coming from, and allows us to make connections with participants and offer support in other areas. The Fresh Food Basket is a first step in community engagement. When basic needs are met, vulnerability decreases, and we see an increase in the ability to create connection and participate in community.
Moving forward, we hope to depend less and less on donations, and hope to see an uptake of this style of program across other communities in Calgary. This program is one that requires little infrastructure to start-up, but provides a highly valuable service to our community.
This summer we have seen an increase in food donations from our Farmers' Market vendors, and have received many donations from community members! Thank you so much to all the community gardens, vendors, businesses and community members who donated to our Fresh Food Basket Summer Fundraiser this year.
We raised:
- $2775.26 from Engaged businesses, and Community Members like YOU
- Weekly donations of lettuce, spinach, chard, rhubarb and herbs from St. Barnabus Community Garden
- Monthly donations from the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Garden
- Frequent donations of greens, peas and zucchinis from Kensington First Community Garden
- Frequent donations of chard, kale, beans, peas and beets from the Sunnyside Shared Garden
We would like to extend an extra-special thank you to TrueBuch Kombucha for a generous donation, and our Sun Fun Summer Day Program for their bake sale efforts!
If you missed out on donating to our Summer Fundraising campaign- no need to fret! We accept donations ALL YEAR ROUND. Currently our biggest need is cash donations so we can purchase fresh produce weekly, and healthy non-perishable items for the holiday season. Donations can be dropped off to the front office at the HSCA during business hours, mailed or made online.
Mailing Address: 1320 5 Ave NW, T2N 0S2 Online Donations: https://www.hsca.ca/donate/
If you require more information about this program, please contact Heather at heather.r@hsca.ca.