Major Donations Update Part 3
Franco Savoia
The Major Donations Committee is recommended to the Board that the following project be approved:
- Development and implementation of an emergency food app Collaborative: (NSTEP is the “fiscal agent’) contribute $25,000 towards the $80,000 budget for the development, testing and implementation of an emergency food app. The contribution is contingent on the procurement of the other $55,000 from other Rotary Clubs and community partners.
Early in the pandemic providing emergency food became a huge challenge because of the lockdown. The Calgary Rotary Club provided additional funds to support the provision of food. In the summer of 2020 Steve Allan, Catherine Brownlee and Franco Savoia convened a meeting of agencies providing emergency food to discuss greater coordination and improve the access to emergency food. Vibrant Communities Calgary, the steward of Enough for All, Calgary’s poverty reduction strategy, commissioned the Canadian Poverty Institute to conduct a study on the provision of emergency food. The report was released early in 2021. The Calgary Rotary Club with Vibrant Communities Calgary led the formation of a Food Security Committee. Centennial, Chinook and the West Clubs also joined the committee. The committee reviewed the 11 recommendations in the report and convened two virtual community consultations with ten emergency food providing community organizations with whom Rotary Clubs had partnered. There was general consensus that the provision of emergency food was fragmented by different eligibility requirements and approaches. Thus the committee chose to focus on the report’s recommendations on improved coordination.
The committee continued to meet and consult individually with the organizations throughout 2022. The notion of a “one refrigerator door” began to evolve and garner community support. There were extensive consultations with the Calgary Food Bank, the Distress Centre(211), Gateway(a system to support access to services by newcomers) and Food Collaborative YYC. Agencies were frequent participants in the committee discussions.
Technology Helps, a not-for- profit committed to digital poverty solutions and a champion of Enough For All, began to attend committee meetings.
After this lengthy and in-depth engagement with a number of local food providers, the Rotary/VCC Food Security has concluded that a user friendly platform to better navigate the hundreds of unique options available is the most effective solution to greatly improving access to emergency food. Over the past 2 years, when talking to people with lived experiences of food insecurity and front line staff at agencies, many reported significant challenges with finding food that is available when needed, with few eligibility limitations, geographically accessible, nutritious to individual needs, and culturally relevant. Existing navigation tools were reviewed.
We needed a community agency to act as “lead” and financial steward for the project. After consulting and reaching out to a number of possible agencies, NSTEP has agreed to assume this role. NSTEP is contracting with Technology Helps to develop and implement an emergency food app that will act as a “digital food pantry” that is a device compatible website (responsive on mobile, desktop, laptop, iPad etc.) with food-specific search and filtering capabilities, maps, and location-detection. Members of the community who are in need of emergency food will be able to search based on their immediate needs, filtering by dietary requirements, urgency, access and more, so then are easily able to find emergency food programs that fit their situation. Critical to this solution it will include a portal, where organizations can update their program information, hours of operation, and whether or not they still have food available. We’ll also gather the support of community organizations to provide valuable feedback. This app will be free to all of its users indefinitely.
The development of the app will include extensive engagement of lived experience—Calgarians who accessing emergency food—such as Poverty Talks at Vibrant Communities Calgary. Agencies and community groups providing emergency food will be consulted to ensure that the elements and the operation of the app will be sensitive and incorporate their needs. As the app is developed it will be fully tested. All emergency food community organizations will be actively encouraged and supported in “signing on” with the app.
It is anticipated that the project will take a year for development, testing and fully launching the app.