Christmas has come early to The Sharing Place Food Centre in Orillia.
The Sharing Place has been selected to recieve $75,000 in funding from the County of Simcoe's Social and Community Investment Fund.
“Each year we look for programs and funders to help support The Sharing Place and the county, each year, allows organizations like ours to request a funding grant to support our programs,” explained Chris Peacock, executive director of the food bank on Dufferin Street.
The funding will help "immensely" with the facility's Meals 4 Change program, School Fuel Program, and Food Bank Program, Peacock said.
“This is foundational funding that really helps with our three programs that allow people to access healthy food. This helps not only with food costs, but it helps us hire coordinators to be able to run these programs,” Peacock said.
“It’s a core piece to our funding puzzle which allows us to sustain these programs that allow us to go beyond the food bank and expand our programs in a smart way.”
On top of the grant, the County of Simcoe educates and helps organizations like The Sharing Place measure their impact in the community. They also require certain reporting measurements on a quarterly basis to ensure the work being done with the money is maximizing its impact.
“They really make sure people truly are better off with our programs, and it goes beyond the number of people served. They ask us to truly understand how an individual feels when they leave our organization and the lasting positive impact that we can leave on them,” Peacock said.
Peacock says the foundational funding is vital for The Sharing Place’s success.
“Usually, people fund food, they don’t fund human capital and individuals. When you can find a funder to fund an individual or a person, the impact is 10 times more powerful,” he said.
“This is a very special grant because it does fund people. People help get stuff done, they help us expand our capacity beyond just being a food bank. We are cooking food here at The Sharing Place and we are sharing food with schools across our community because of the funding we get from the County of Simcoe.”
Peacock says innovation in the social service sector is difficult, but The Sharing Place continues to try to push the envelope, which the funding acknowledges.
Wendy Hembruff, director of community engagement and partnerships for the County of Simcoe, says the county identified that The Sharing Place’s Healthy Food Experience Project "contributes to the Orillia area in meaningful and impactful ways through its responsive approach to ensuring that low-income individuals, families, and students can not only access nutritious food but also have improved opportunities to make healthy food choices."
"The opportunity to make healthy food choices contributes to people being stronger, healthier, and more able to focus on other important matters in their lives throughout the day," she said in a written statement.
"We are pleased that the county’s $75,000 contribution to support this project will make a meaningful difference for those experiencing food insecurity in the Orillia area."
The Sharing Place's Healthy Food Experience Project is one of 16 projects the county is supporting through the Social and Community Investment Fund, for a total investment of almost $1.2 million across the region.
