Moosomin food bank needs more donations
August 18, 2025, 9:24 am
Joey Light
The Moosomin Food Share needs more donations and is hoping to get more fresh produce donated during the garden harvest season. The World-Spectator spoke with Food Share Manager Samantha Campbell last week. The interview follows.
What is your main goal for the food bank right now? Do you need more volunteers, donations, etc.
“Both actually, we are really low on donations, especially this past year but more so the past couple of years it’s been slowing down and our increase is getting higher and higher. For example, two months ago we had 64 clients and now we are at 73 clients for the month and our donations are very low and we are having to buy food, which we support the Co-op and we are eating up our funds faster than what we want to. We’ve been applying for grants but lots of grants they don’t give you funds just to buy food they will give you purchased supplies or something like that which doesn’t always help our case at the moment.”
When did you guys start growing fresh produce and where do you grow it?
“Behind our thrift store, in the back alley where the community fridge is located, right beside that we have our garden. We were lucky enough to get a grant through Nutrien to purchase raised garden beds, so we grow different vegetables there—we grow beets, carrots, lettuce, beans, cucumbers, the types that produce a little bit faster. Then that goes into our hampers and the ones we can’t use, if something is ready and it’s not hamper day we sell it out front, we were able to purchase a fridge through a grant through Food Banks Canada and we sell our produce there and the funds go back to the food bank or we put them in the community fridge for everyone to enjoy.”
Do you guys use the community garden?
“We don’t, simply because its a far trek for us when we are low on volunteers and staff, we find just having it at our back yard is very helpful but we were able to purchase through a grant, some raised garden beds out there at the community garden for other people to enjoy and then we do tell our clients that are coming to the food bank that if they would like to start a garden that we have garden beds out there that they are able to use.”
How has the growing season been this year?
“Pretty good! Our harvest is really good at the back, we do have a couple volunteers and staff members that also grow stuff in their gardens and donate that back to the food bank so that helps tremendously as well and then we usually have the odd person donate their potatoes, right now we have a lot of apples coming in. What we can’t use we either put in the community fridge or we sell it out front.”
How has having fresh produce improved your food bank? Why is it important to have fresh food in food banks?
“We go through the Food Banks of Canada guidelines so they ask to purchase heart healthy foods, which include your fresh produce, meat, dairy, and whole grains, so we find it very important to try and supply as much produce as we can, especially because we see in the grocery store that’s pretty much what costs the most is your fresh produce and fruit, so we’re trying to give back as much as we can, to make sure that they are at least getting one healthy meal out of what they are able to buy.”
Do people enjoy having the fresh produce?
“Yes, we can’t keep it stocked enough! As soon as we put something in it’s automatically gone and we do have cameras so we can see that it’s not just one person taking everything there’s numerous people throughout the day accessing that fridge.”
What types of fresh produce can people donate?
“Anything! We take apples, rhubarb, potatoes, beans, beets, anything that you grow in your garden we can take. You can drop it off right at the food bank or thrift store and we will wash it and distribute it where it needs to go.”
What other donations are you needing right now?
“We are needing monetary donations along with grocery items, we are always low on toilet paper, paper towels, your non-perishable items, and perishable items like canned fruit, pasta, and cereal. The main staples in your pantry is what we are looking for.”
How is community involvement?
“Pretty good, we have a few volunteers who come in regularly that access the food bank and help, they package our backpacks for our Backpack Program every Thursday, they also help put away our groceries and do the cleaning of the food bank. We are always looking for more and more volunteers especially as we get busier and busier and coming up to Thanksgiving and Christmas it’s just going to get busier.”
Backpack Program
“We are also looking for donations for the backpacks, we were very lucky to be able to receive a grant from the Community Initiative Fund that supported us in supplying the backpacks but again with the rising cost of food and before we were at 18 backpacks, we are at 22 now for children that use it every Friday. We go off of Food Banks Canada’s guidelines and supply heart healthy food to the kids, they get two snacks, a breakfast, and a lunch for Saturday and Sunday and we also get a jug of milk to go along for their family as well.”
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