Anishnabeg Outreach ends food donation delivery program

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."