YWCA Peterborough Haliburton has announced the end of its community food initiative, the Nourish Project, effective March 31, due to inadequate funding.
The idea for the Nourish Project developed out of the Peterborough Community Food Network when its members decided there was a need to address the gaps in food access, production, consumption, and knowledge in the city and county of Peterborough.
With its decades of experience in food literacy and advocacy from supporting women and children fleeing gender-based violence, the YWCA received funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation in 2012 for a two-year research project, supported by partners Peterborough Public Health, Community Opportunity and Innovation Network, Peterborough Centre for Social Innovation, the Community Garden Network, Fleming College, the City of Peterborough, and the Social Planning Council.
The ambitious vision of the Nourish Project was to establish places for food in the City of Peterborough, in each township in Peterborough County, and in First Nations communities, with each place including space and tools for learning about food, such as a community kitchen, rooms for workshops, and a gathering space, as well as other options such as farmers’ markets, community gardens, greenhouses, or public outdoor brick ovens.
Since then, the Nourish Project has worked with volunteers and community partners including Peterborough Public Health and Peterborough GreenUP to grow access to healthy and locally produced food, food literacy, and food advocacy and civic engagement. Nourish and its partners have focused on the four pillars of eating, cooking, growing, and advocacy with programs that created spaces where people felt they belonged.
In 2017, the Nourish Project received a grant of $749,900 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and was able to expand with programs in Havelock, Lakefield, and Curve Lake First Nation. The Nourish Project has also received grants in the past from the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough and United Way Peterborough & District, and the YWCA’s annual “Empty Bowls” fundraiser has also generated funds to support the project.
However, according to the YWCA, over the past four years inadequate funding has reduced the Nourish Project to just three initiatives: supporting community gardens, operating the Curve Lake Community Market, and providing monthly JustFood boxes.
The continued lack of stable, annualized funding has led the YWCA Peterborough Haliburton to a decision to end the Nourish Project as of March 31, according to a media release from the organization.
“The success of the Nourish Project is a result of the vision, passion and expertise of the Nourish team members, the community partners, and volunteers who contributed in-kind resources and expertise, local donors and funders, and the program participants who helped us all learn and grow over the years,” says the YWCA’s executive director Kim Dolan in the release.
“We know the growing gap between income and rising costs for basic needs is creating more food insecurity in our communities. To assist other organizations in their food action initiatives, the YWCA has distributed Nourish Project resources, reports, and program information to a number of community partners to support their efforts.”
The decision to end the Nourish Project also means that proceeds from this year’s Empty Bowls fundraiser on February 21 will instead be used to support food insecurity programs at One City and Kawartha Food Share — a decision the YWCA made after consulting with the Kawartha Potters Guild, which has donated bowls every year to the fundraiser.
“We are truly grateful to donors who have supported the Nourish Project, the potters and woodturners who have crafted hundreds of bowls, and the local restaurants who have shared delicious food,” says the YWCA’s director of philanthropy Tina Thornton.
As the YWCA winds down the Nourish Project, the organization says program participants will receive information and referrals to other community food initiatives, and anyone who has Nourish Dollars can call the YWCA for information about how to redeem them.
