Too much harvest? Don't dump it, donate it to those in need in Kamloops, Okanagan
It is harvest time and that means there is an abundance of fruit and vegetables growing in farms, gardens and orchards in Kamloops and the throughout the Okanagan Valley.
During a time of food shortage and inflated prices at the grocery stores, some families can really benefit from free food, and there are volunteers working hard to salvage unwanted food that would otherwise be wasted.
A group of volunteers with the Kamloops Gleaning Abundance program has been rescuing fruit from properties for a decade, and dispersing it to non-profits in the community.
“There are still people that don’t know about our program, instead of calling us they let their fruit go to waste," said manager Marianna Guerra.
According to the provincial government, British Columbians throw away one out of every four bags of groceries they buy, which adds up to more than $1,100 of food each home every year. For Canada as a whole, that amounts to almost 2.2 million tonnes of edible food wasted each year.
The gleaners work to curb these losses, mostly by picking fruit trees, but in a smaller capacity, picking produce like corn and potatoes from area farms that have an over abundance. One third of each harvest goes to the volunteers, a third to the property owner and a third to those in need.
“The number of volunteers increased by thirty percent rgua year, which speaks to the demand for people getting access to food,” Guerra said. “People are excited to go to farms and pick, everyone benefits.”
When there is an overabundance of fruit at the height of the season, some of it goes to the Kamloops Food Policy Council to be processed into dried snacks to supply non-profits throughout the winter months.
Food-it-Forward in the Okanagan is a group of volunteers who pick up extra harvest before it goes into the compost and gets it out to the community with no cost to the donators or those receiving, according to their social media page.
The volunteer organization has several partners throughout the Okanagan Valley such as food banks, churches and community centres, community fridges and pantries where food is handed out the same day it is received. There is support from local businesses and food donations from bakeries, orchards, stores and farms.
Volunteers distribute to buildings and neighbourhoods with fridges or freezers and when possible set up public access in neighbourhoods and post the location on the Facebook site.
The need for food is increasing with food banks in the central Okanagan seeing an estimated client base growth of 20% since the beginning of the year, according to CEO Trevor Moss in an interview with iNFOnews.ca on Sept. 13. The need was exacerbated by the McDougall Creek wildfire.
“Before the fires, it was well known that, in reference to inflation, in reference to the economy, more and more people are using food banks simply because the bite of inflation is there,” Moss said, adding he’s seeing more working families —especially those with two adults and two children —coming in for help.
“In the last two years, food costs have gone up anywhere from 20 to 25% and that has not gone down. It’s not, maybe, going up in the last two months but it’s not going down.”
READ MORE: South Okanagan winery scaling back in midst of overwhelming challenges
Kamloops Food Bank executive director Bernadette Siracky was not immediately available for comment but did tell iNFOnews.ca staff on Sept. 22 that demands for the Food bank in Kamloops have been increasing this year.
On Sept. 14 the federal government called for the five largest Canadian grocery companies to create a plan to stabilize prices in response to the pressure Canadian families are under as food prices are climbing, but no changes have been confirmed. Grocery prices in August were 6.9 per cent higher than they were a year ago and the country's overall inflation rate was 4.0 per cent.
Food-it-Forward Okanagan did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Go here for more information on the Kamloops Abundance Gleaning Program.
For more information on Food-it-Forward Okanagan, send them an email to fooditforwardokanagan@gmail.com
Are there volunteers working to curb food waste in your community? Let us know in the comments below.
— With files from the Canadian Press
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