Thanks to a grant from Farm Credit Canada (FCC), the Carman and Area Food Pantry can now store refrigerated goods.
FCC announced in November that it is giving $1.5 million to 82 community groups across Canada through its FCC AgriSpirit Fund. The fund granted between $10,000 and $25,000 to rural capital projects in cities, towns, and communities with less than 150,000 residents. This year, one of those recipients was the Carman and Area Food Pantry for the purchase of two industrial fridges.
The organization received $10,000 from FCC to purchase the fridges in the fall of 2024, and they’re already seeing the impact the grant has had.
“Sometimes donations come in early, and if it’s something that requires refrigeration, in the past we couldn’t really accept it,” said Evelyn Petkau of the food pantry. “Now we can take things at whatever point and have a way of storing them until we have our food pantry day.”
The Carman and Area Food Pantry has been running for over two years, starting in November 2022. Every fourth Thursday, the group opens its doors and allows households registered with them to come in and “shop” for what they need. When it started in 2022, the Carman and Area Food Pantry had 30 local households registered to receive goods. This month, they had 200 households registered and saw 150 of them on the food pantry day.
The organization gets the food from Harvest Manitoba and local donations. The Tuesday before each food pantry day, volunteers go to Harvest Manitoba to pick up their order (based on the number of registered households and demographics), typically consisting of canned goods, dried goods, produce, and sometimes meat. They always have flour and potatoes donated by locals, and Petkau said the food pantry always buys bread and milk for families. A local market gardener also donates produce every month, donating things from cold storage in winter like cabbage.
Petkau said that in the past, the Carman and Area Food Pantry has had to get rid of leftover food that required cold storage because it didn’t have a fridge to keep it in. The grant from FCC has helped the group unexplainably.
“These fridges have sort of opened another door for us to make food available,” she said, noting that after January’s food pantry day, they had leftover yogurt, produce, and milk to store in the fridges.
The fridge additions have not only reduced the group’s food waste but also allowed them to accept more donations and keep more food items, which means less money spent.
“Emergencies come up too,” said Petkau. “Now, we have food on hand for that. It sort of opens another avenue for us to meet the need.”
Petkau and the food pantry are focusing on the number of people in need in the community. According to Food Banks Canada, in March 2024, there were over 2 million visits to food banks across the country—the highest number in history.
Food Banks Canada’s HungerCount 2024 shows a six percent increase in food bank visits from 2023 to 2024 and a 90 percent increase compared to 2019. The report also found people with the lowest incomes spend over 80 per cent of their disposable income on food and housing alone, making inflation a “one-two punch” for low-income households. One-third of food bank clients are children, 70 percent of food bank clients live in market rent housing, and 32 percent of food bank clients are newcomers to Canada within the last 10 years. The complete report can be found at foodbankscanada.ca/hungercount.
The Carman and Area Food Pantry serves the rural municipalities (RMs) of Dufferin, Grey, Roland, and Thompson. It operates entirely on donations and volunteer power.
