The Saint John Community Food Basket opened it's doors for the first time in 1983. The representatives of four uptown churches met to discuss how to make the best use of their individual “compassionate funds”. Until then, people in need were obliged to ask for grocery money from individual churches. Other south end peninsula churches were approached and the Saint John Community Food Basket become
a reality. As people from other areas of our city began to seek relief at our uptown Food Basket, it was obvious that our city needed some additional options. Our dedicated volunteers decided to meet with the representatives from the church in the East, West and North branches of Saint John. Before long we saw food banks open in each of these parts of our city. The Saint John Community Food Basket is unique in that it not only serves its own neighbourhood, it is the central receiving station for our APS orders and large donations from food drives. These are counted, sorted and dispersed to other food banks by the volunteers. For example, at the most recent Santa Claus Parade, 4000 pounds of food was delivered on Saturday evening. On Monday morning ten volunteers started sorting. By 3pm on Tuesday, it was all stored on shelves or in bins. As well as doing this, they carried on their usual duties of putting up orders and serving the regular Tuesday clientele. The Food Basket supplements the food banks from Sussex to St. Stephen and Grand Bay, an area over one hundred miles long. Most volunteers agree the best thing about this community service is the opportunity to express gratitude for our own good fortune by giving back to others. Almost equally gratifying is our appreciation to the clients for what they teach us. It is genuinely humbling to observe their consideration and caring for each other. They, who have so little, take no more that they need. “I have bread at home, I don’t need any when a mother might want it for her kids.” “Keep that. Someone worse off needs it more that I do.” Such comments are not uncommon and are truly a “reality check” for those of us who take so much for granted. Over the twenty-nine years, the number of clients has increased. Success would be serving the client till they achieved the means to take care of themselves. Many circumstances (poor mental and/or physical health, addictions, economic climate, insufficient social support) preclude that from becoming possible. We are extremely successful because we have operated for twenty-nine years supported only by donations of food, money and time. We have no paid staff and we receive no government funding. It is the people and businesses of Saint John that make the Food Basket a successful, completely volunteer organization. All the food banks in the city, except ours, are situated in communities that have these two things – a supermarket and a good percentage of financially stable neighbourhoods. Our food basket district has neither. The uptown/south end core has the largest percentage of people in need and it lacks affluent subdivisions. Therefore, the number of neighbourhood people able to support us is small. Our area also lacks a supermarket which each of the other districts has to provide day old bread and other donations. Yet we manage to succeed thanks to the generous support of Saint John citizens in general and the uptown businesses in particular, including our Seadogs hockey team and Millrats basketball team. The months after Christmas and the summer months are the most difficult time to raise food donations. Summers are short and people spend the time enjoying the season. Because it is not cold, it is easy to forget that hunger doesn’t take a holiday. From the board (chair, treasurer and all members) to the coordinators, to the hands on workers who stock shelves, make up orders and serve the clients, every volunteer involved must, and does bring to the organization the same skills and dedication that paid employees are expected to have in a for profit business.
