The pandemic has influenced the health of community members but has also brought to light the ongoing issue of food insecurity within the greater Canton area. Various programs on campus and in the local community have worked together to approach different aspects of the issue and work towards the common goal of ensuring food security.
GardenShare, a local organization with the mission to “promote a local food system that ensures food security for all St. Lawrence County residents,” is a volunteer opportunity for SLU students and a resource for local community collaboration. Céline Carrière, management consultant of GardenShare, works to create an effective long-term plan for the group.
“With all of the supply chain challenges that we’re seeing right now, there are real challenges around the world,” Carrière said. “Having that local source of food is exceptionally important in order to be able to access food generally, but also because the prices that farmers charge are really to sustain those farms and to continue to provide food locally,” she said.
Associate Director of Gardenshare Carlene Doane has been working on the team for 11 years. During the pandemic, some of the farmers that GardenShare collaborated with were also influenced in a positive way, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was used locally by community members to purchase food. “People weren’t feeling safe to go to stores, but what we saw last year was people came out and drove to farmer’s market,” Doane said. “We had heard from farmers that were doing CSAs that they were maxed out for the first time in years.”
St. Lawrence County has struggled with food insecurity for a substantial amount of time, even before the pandemic. “One in four people in the North Country are food insecure and across the state, it’s one in five,” Carrière said. The collaboration among SLU students and the community demonstrates a strong relationship. “We love the opportunity to have that wisdom sort of permeate outside of the campus into the community because it makes us stronger for it,” she added.
In downtown Canton, The Church and Community Program (CCP) runs five programs including The Food Pantry, The Second Chance Thrift Shop, The Giving Tree, The Richard Morrow Emergency Fund and The Back to School Program. The pandemic has also had a direct impact on the functioning of these programs, but especially The Food Pantry. Connie Jenkins, Director of Operations at CCP, explained how the organization worked through the pandemic.
“When it first happened, we had to close the shop because we had high-risk volunteers,” said Jenkins. “The thing that surprised me was that we got a lot fewer people,” she added. “They were getting food from the schools, they had the stimulus, they had extra unemployment… the ones that had lost work. They were okay without us and we didn’t need to be open as much so we had less back and forth, but I kept waiting for this flood of people that I thought we’d get but we still haven’t.”
“We get new people, probably two-three a month, so our numbers are growing back but it’s a whole new crop,” Jenkins explained. “The regulars as I call them, people who would come for three or four years, they’re okay on their own now and there’s extra SNAP which is sticking and some of them are going back to work, so they’ve kinda moved on but what I got was people that just abruptly lost their jobs.” Jenkins explained how this mostly came as a result of newer people not being on social services and food stamps. “They had the rug pulled out from under them and couldn’t feed their families and they found their way here.”
According to Executive Board member Caitlin French, The Campus Kitchens Project (CKP) is a “student-powered hunger-relief organization.” The pandemic had a direct influence on how the organization ran. “With Covid, CKP was the only club that was running throughout the whole pandemic and when Covid hit considering the amount of food insecurity in the area people really wanted to keep going and not stop because people needed food more than ever.”
When discussing the topic of food insecurity within the community, and how the school has had a role in assisting and tackling the issue, CKP has played a key role. “I do the serve shift, which is where I hand out the meals to guests, so I see the kind of people that are coming to get the food every week and they don’t miss… they come back every week,” French said. “It’s really rewarding to see the actual people that you’re helping, but it definitely opened my eyes to how real it is just seeing the people that are using what we’re offering.”
“We receive donations from the local community which goes into almost all of our meals, so we are reducing hunger while also limiting food waste,” French said. “I definitely think the school could do more, but I think the CKP is really strong and we have a lot of volunteers and I definitely think more education about the issue is always good.”