A popular affordable food charity has come back to St. Albert through the efforts of a local church.
The WECAN Food Basket Society opened its new St. Albert depot at the St. Albert United Church in late September.
Established about 30 years ago by two City of Edmonton social workers, WECAN uses bulk purchasing to help low-income Albertans get fresh meat and produce once a month. It runs 18 distribution depots in Barrhead, Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, Leduc, Ryley, Sherwood Park, Tofield, Westlock, and now St. Albert, and helps about 500 families a year.
WECAN used to run a depot out of the St. Albert Salvation Army building but closed it about four years ago, said Tricia Boonstra, community development co-ordinator for the City of St. Albert. During last spring’s Poverty Talk series, Boonstra said a resident told her about the closure meant she now had to drive into Edmonton to get food from WECAN, and suggested the city could help address food insecurity by bringing the society back to St. Albert.
Boonstra said the city worked with community groups to gauge interest in the society’s services last summer and had about 30 people sign up for it.
Marilyn Nelson of the St. Albert United Church’s outreach committee said the church hosted a panel on homelessness last September, during which a panellist asked if anyone wanted to run a St. Albert WECAN depot. Wanting to help those struggling with the cost of food, she volunteered.
Nelson said she and other church members will pick up and distribute food boxes from WECAN at the church on the third Friday of every month starting Oct. 18 from noon to 2 p.m. She suspected it would prove to be a popular service.
“I have 30 people on my list already,” she said.
How it works
WECAN members pay a $5 annual membership fee and get to order boxes of produce ($15 each) and frozen meat ($20 each) each month, said society chairperson Jennifer Scherer. Those boxes are distributed at depots in the third week of every month, which is when most families tend to run short on food and money.
The contents of the food boxes vary between months, Scherer said. A typical produce box might contain a kilogram of bananas, five pounds of potatoes, four apples, four oranges, and one bunch each of lettuce and broccoli, for example, while a meat one might have 500 g of ground beef and 1.2 kg of chicken. Each box typically contains about two grocery bags’ worth of food.
Scherer said the society is able to buy groceries in bulk at below retail prices, saving members money. The contents of September’s produce box had a retail cost of about $28 at Walmart and around $34 at Sobeys, for example, statistics in the society’s monthly newsletter showed. The society also gives members a chance to work together as a community.
“By working together, we’re able to make more of a difference than we can on our own.”
Boonstra said services such as WECAN could help relieve pressures on food banks and address the stigma some feel in turning toward such outlets.
Nelson said she hoped to recruit additional volunteers for the St. Albert depot so it could expand its operating hours. She asked anyone picking up boxes from the depot to bring their own bags.
Questions on WECAN in St. Albert should go to 780-686-7297, [email protected], or wecanfood.com.
