From Charity to Solidarity: Lessons from Canada’s Community Food Center

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from Civil Eats:


From Charity to Solidarity: Lessons from Canada’s Community Food Center
By Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis on October 28, 2013


Most Americans think of Canadians as their nice northern neighbors, prone to superfluous apologies. Sorry (yes) to burst that bubble, but we also have a deep self-congratulatory streak. Among ourselves we can be smug, extoling the virtues of our kinder, gentler social safety net. These hard-won achievements are worthy of a few pats on the back, sure, even though as in most other nations in the industrialized world, that net is growing taut and frayed.

But there is one place we have long lagged behind: Prioritizing access to food in our social support system. With more than 12 percent of Canadians considered food insecure, it’s a significant problem. Canada has no national school meal program, no specific nutrition supports built into our welfare system, and no food stamps aimed at helping low income people access basic foodstuffs.



For all their challenges and deficiencies, federal food-based social assistance programs in the U.S. have proved an essential lifeline—with one in seven Americans enrolled in the food stamp program (SNAP), 32 million kids receiving subsidized and regulated school meals and half the babies born in the country enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program (WIC). The $40 billion the House Republicans want to see in cuts to food stamps—the deepest cuts in a generation—will be a devastating blow.

WEB The Stop Greenhouse - cr Matt O'SullivanAfter 20 years working in low-income communities, I can assure you that those left behind by these cuts aren’t miraculously going to stop being hungry. Poverty doesn’t go away because we wish it would. If these cuts go through, the lines leading to soup kitchens and food pantries across America will swell exponentially with families and children who no longer have access to the most basic food items. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://civileats.com/2013/10/28/from-charity-to-solidarity-lessons-from-canadas-community-food-center/#sthash.J4aJAY5K.dpuf

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