Roots to Harvest organizers are excited to expand their services.
The group is joining the Community Food Centres of Canada (CFCC).
The CFCC says it’s working with 178 communities across the country to offer food programs and develop community food centres.
The partnership will include a name change for Roots to Harvest, which will be known as Roots Community Food Centre.
Roots Executive Director Erin Beagle says it will retain control of its own finances, hiring and operation, but will follow the CFCC’s principles and values, which she says “we were operating under already.”
“This really just brings us into a national network and conversation, and elevates the work we can do so it can actually reach a national level,” Beagle says.
The organization will add a dining room to its Fort William Road location, which will allow it to host community meals for elders and seniors twice a week.
It will also partner with the Thunder Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre to offer traditional meals out of that dining room.
The partnership will allow Roots to Harvest to offer its community market at its headquarters, which Beagle says will make fresh food more accessible to more people in Thunder Bay.
The market currently runs once a week on Limbrick Street and in Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek (Gull Bay First Nation), selling fresh produce at wholesale or subsidized prices.
Roots to Harvest will get $75,000 a year in funding from CFCC, and begin offering its expanded services in early March 2022.
