After over 20 years The Salvation Army’s Good Food Box program has ceased operations.
The program was intended to enable those who are in need to access fresh produce into the homes of people in Northumberland County.
The Good Food Box costs $15, but for people/families who are subsidized with children under-18 it costs $10 with The Salvation Army paying the additional $5.
Because of the amount of fresh produce purchased, The Salvation Army was given a better deal.
“When it was originally started by The Salvation Army over 20 years ago, it was for our clients, the poorest of the poor to make sure they got healthy food,” said Captain Carolyn Simpson.
A number of years ago community partners joined the program and The Salvation Army received external funding, which then expanded the scope of the Good Food Box program to include anyone in Northumberland County to promote healthy eating.
“Unfortunately when that happened it took it outside of our mandate, so that we are feeding middle income people as well as people who can’t afford it.”
“After the program had grown to a substantial size unfortunately our external funding was cut last year and we tried to run the program without that funding for a full year.”
Since then Simpson said the program has been running in the red, and numbers of people using the program are dropping.
“Essentially The Salvation Army was paying to feed the middle class, along with the upper class as well as our fulfilling our mandate of feeding people who need help.”
Another issue for the program was being able to access local produce.
“We aren’t big enough to have a local contract with somebody and so we were having to get our produce from Kingston and have it shipped here. People weren’t always happy with the produce that came, and for the amount we were paying for it, we couldn’t get the highest quality produce.”
Simpson said it’s been years since the price of the Good Food Box has increased – if ever.
“It’s self identification in terms of need so anyone can come and say, “I want a box and I want subsidy for the box” and we can’t say, “do you need the subsidy?”
Also, the number of people using the program has been consistently going down over the years.
In 2017 The Salvation Army sold 4,124 Good Food Boxes. In 2018 they only sold 2,742 which is a difference of 1,382 boxes.
“That is considerable,” said Community and Family Services Manager, Lisa Graham.
The biggest month in 2017 was May with an order of 415 boxes. In 2018 the biggest month was February with 275 boxes.
“Part of that is we can’t get the amount of food we used to for the same amount of money,” said Simpson.
“Our mandate is to serve those who are struggling and yes, sometimes that might be a middle income person who is in debt and can’t pay for food. So every person is taken individually. We don’t look at someone’s income and turn them away.”
“In the end we came to our community partners, and said The Salvation Army can’t continue to fund this program as it stands.”
“We felt it was outside of our mandate and we were absorbing costs.”
Since no other agencies were able to take it on, Thursday, December 6, 2018 will be the last time for the Good Food Box program.
The money The Salvation Army has been absorbing can now be put towards fresh produce for their own food bank, and also for their new street ministry for the new year.
Food 4 All is going to get the funding they need from Northumberland County to purchase fresh produce and people who really need fresh produce will still get it
“So that the people who need it the most will still be able to access the produce. That’s why we can leave it with a clear conscience knowing the people that The Salvation Army is mandated to serve are still going to get the help they need because they can still go to the food banks and get fresh produce.”
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
