Kitchener-Waterloo

Anishnabeg Outreach ends food donation delivery program

Anishnabeg Outreach has been delivering food to families in need who cannot access donations themselves through the Spirit Bundle program. But now food donations will be only available by individual pickup because of financial constraints.

Non-profit has been delivering food to a select number of families since 2020

donations
Anishnabeg Outreach has had to stop delivering food donations through the Spirit Bundle program because of staffing and financial challenges. (Anishnabeg Outreach)

A food delivery program run by Anishnabeg Outreach and that serves families in Waterloo region and Guelph has been cancelled.

The program saw a delivery driver taking bundles of food once every two weeks to Indigenous families in need.

On Monday, the non-profit, which has a centre in both Guelph and Kitchener and a farm in Breslau, announced it could no longer afford to deliver food.

Spokesperson Robin Tuffin told CBC News the Spirit Bundles food delivery service was cancelled because of significant staffing and funding challenges.

"Everything right now is more money," Tuffin said.

"There's less grants, more challenges for a lot of non-profits right now and people in general. But there is certainly decline and we're seeing it across the board with social services and non-profits who are having to make changes because the money often is just not there."

Tuffin said the non-profit will still provide food donations for pickup and will continue to serve the needs of about 500 Indigenous families.

But as a result of this cutback, 180 families across Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo and Guelph who used to get their food delivered will now have to figure out how to pick them up themselves.

"[These are] people that are already have significant hardships that are going to have additional hardship," she said.

"We're going to make sure that we are trying to connect them with other community partners so that they don't go without food."

She said they have been able to support the delivery program since 2020 with just one driver and one truck. They started the program to make the food donations more accessible for people who live more than 40 minutes from the centre.

"There are exceptions to those rules for [people with] considerable barriers such as disabilities, mobility challenges, lack of transportation or caregiving demand."

Tuffin said ending the delivery program was a difficult decision.

"The worst-case scenario would be that we would have to shut down the program entirely. So we do hold space for gratitude that we're able to do a version of it, although not an ideal version."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aastha Shetty

CBC journalist

Aastha Shetty is a journalist with CBC Kitchener-Waterloo. She has lived, worked and told stories in Waterloo region and surrounding areas since 2018. She has covered a variety of topics including housing and affordability, consumer rights and social injustice. She also has experience as a court reporter and as a multimedia producer. Get in touch: aastha.shetty@cbc.ca or 226 338 7845.