This story is a web exclusive, to keep you up to date on how the COVID-19 emergency is affecting our community.
by Alayne McGregor
The COVID-19 pandemic has put the Centretown Emergency Food Centre on thin ice – and it could use your help.
On Monday, coordinator Kerry Kaiser couldn’t buy many of the staples – beef, chicken, sugar, toilet paper, soup – which she needed for the food bank’s clients. Local grocer Massine’s has agreed to set aside groceries for the centre for its Thursday clients, but she’s still worried about the future.
But she’s been cheered by “wonderful acts of kindness.” When the Lieutenant’s Pump pub on Elgin temporarily closed for the emergency, it donated all the produce it had on hand to the centre. The pub’s staff brought in “boxes of fresh produce, beautiful stuff. They’d rather give it to us than let it go to waste.”
The centre, which has been in regular operation for 40 years, is located at 507 Bank Street in the basement of Centretown United Church. It serves those in need who live in the Centretown area bordered by Lyon Street, Wellington Street, Billings Bridge and Main Street, and distributes food from noon to 2 p.m. four days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Before COVID, clients could pick which food products they needed from the centre’s shelves, but that did not allow the now-necessary social distancing. Kaiser said the centre’s volunteers are now preparing standard bags of groceries; clients are asked to pick up their bags and leave immediately.
On Monday, they served 78, and on Tuesday more than 30. “The system is working really well, but there’s no guarantee it will stay that way.”
The centre has received many offers of volunteer time, she said, but they don’t need it right now. They’ve also asked senior-age volunteers not to come in to avoid risking them being exposed to infection.
What they do need is donations of any amount, either online or by cheque. “This is setting us right back financially.”
Currently the centre is also helping some clients from other parts of Ottawa where food banks have closed, but Kaiser said they may have to restrict their help just to Centretown residents “if the situation gets worse. Right now we’re assessing it on a day to day basis.”
She suggested that the provincial government consider giving an emergency top-up to social assistance recipients so they could buy food themselves. Even an extra $100 top-up would help, she said, and would allow food banks to regroup.
If the COVID-19 emergency lasts more than two to three weeks, the situation will get more difficult, Kaiser said. The centre survives on donations and its volunteer base. If it can’t use volunteers, its survival is threatened, and if clients get ill, they put the centre’s two staff and 70 volunteers at risk.
There’s a possibility the city or province could order the food banks to shut down. “But we will go and give as long as we can.”
The western part of Centretown is served by the Dalhousie Food Cupboard. It’s located in Suite 107 in the Bronson Centre, at 211 Bronson Avenue north of Somerset Street, and is open from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays. It serves those living from Lyon Street to Breezehill Avenue, and between Carling Avenue and the Ottawa River.
The Cupboard says on its website that it’s also changing how it distributes food. It has created a separate take-out zone down the hall from its intake area so that clients can pack their own orders as soon as volunteers gather their goods from the Cupboard’s fridge and shelves. It has also staggered access to reception and intake areas, creating physical space within client waiting zones, and increased its disinfecting, cleaning, and use of disposable gloves.
You can donate online to the Centretown Emergency Food Centre at https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/centretown-churches-social-action-committee/. Choose “Emergency Food Centre Fund” on the form. You can also mail or bring cheques to the centre at 507 Bank Street anytime between 8:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.
You can donate online to the Dalhousie Food Cupboard at https://www.dalhousiefoodcupboard.ca/donate.html . You can also send cheques payable to “Dalhousie Food Action Group Inc” to 211 Bronson Ave, Suite 107.
Both food banks are registered charities.