Groups team up to talk about goal of increasing food security in region
The Selkirk & District Community Foundation(SDCF) invited people from the region to its second summit on increasing food security and over 50 people came to Memorial Hall in Selkirk to attend.
This summit followed the first food summit which was a World Café style event where residents in small groups brainstormed ways to increase the reach of agencies in our region involved with increasing food security.
“The Foundation strives to make our community – the City of Selkirk, the RM of St Andrews and the RM of St Clements – a vital place to live, work and play, for all. Connecting and nurturing partnerships is critical to the betterment of the community as a whole, and it’s inspiring to see it happen in real time at network events like this,” said Meredith Boerchers, SDCF’s Executive Director
The second summit, called Building Momentum, also followed the World Café style model but in addition to groups getting together to do the work of understanding and proposing ways to go about tackling the multi-layered problem of food insecurity, they also had guest speakers Heather Fontaine, Community Connector at Ruth Hooker School; Tristan Dreilich, Network Coordinator with the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network in Selkirk; and Meaghan Erbus, VP Advocacy & Stakeholder Relations with Manitoba Harvest. These three professionals come with some serious local and provincial knowledge, which helps to understand the current state of food insecurity.
“I know when I took on this role at the school, I was so blown away by how much was already going on in the community and how little I had actually known about it,” Fontaine said.
We know that food insecurity is a large issue in our region as the SCDF’s Vital Signs 2026 report showed 29 per cent of people in the Triple S area worry that food will run out before they have money to buy more. Thirty-three per cent of people also responded that they struggle to eat balanced meals. Additionally, information revealed that, in 2022, the Selkirk Food Bank saw 9,672 visits locally, and that number has only risen in the intervening years.
“Through our Vital Signs report, we know that more and more people in our region can’t afford nutritious food. We also know that there’s many people in our community filling the gaps,” David Thorne, SDCF board member said.
The summit’s aim was to build connections between food security groups to identify common challenges and come up with ways they can work together to improve the system and make it more efficient. The night also highlighted the lived experience of people who access food programs.
Dreilich felt that this summit hit on some good ideas.
“I think for me it was visible that there’s partnerships to be had there, there’s no lack of willingness, and there’s opportunities. There’s enough food to go around. It’s a question of how do we get organized enough to make it happen and what strings do we need to pull and who do we need to bug to make this a thing. For me, it’s always a question of how do we centre the people who are either in the centre of that service or are the ones who are reaching out for that service. We need to let them lead, and then, the rest of us need to figure out the gaps on our end.”
The SCDF is now moving towards turning the effort over to the community to lead. A sign-up sheet allowed interested parties to put their names down to lead the conversation going forward.
