We Feed Lunenburg, a community organization formed during the pandemic to provide healthy food to those in need is looking to expand its operations.
They recently began fundraising for a new food hub which will provide a larger space for them to operate out of, enabling them to help more people.
Co-founder David Jarvis says the idea for the food hub came about after the success of their 24-hour food pantry which is currently set up at the Lunenburg Water Mart. “The pantry has been a huge success, we are providing over 40 prepared meals a week through it now, along with all the non-perishables and other things,” said Jarvis. “It’s essentially fully supported by community donations and volunteers, but over time we’ve realized the need for things like this is even greater than we thought,”.
With the food hub Jarvis says they will have more space for things like refrigerated and frozen meal options as well as more overall storage. “We want to keep the 24-hour pantry open so people can get what they need when they need, but with the food hub we plan to operate in accordance with community needs, opening for hours when we see our highest traffic.”
Jarvis comes from a background in baking and one thing he takes pride in with We Feed Lunenburg is providing high-quality nutritious food, which often isn’t available at food banks. “We try and provide as much fresh produce and baked goods as we can so people have healthy options when they come to us in need,”.
Fundraising is now underway and the first contribution has already been made by Solterre Architecture who designed the building that We Feed Lunenburg hopes to build.
We Feed Lunenburg is also appealing to the community to sponsor various building components so they can get involved. “Throughout our journey, we continue to be amazed by the support of the community for our project, and we figured this was a way to let people have their mark on our new food hub,”. Items available to be sponsored include things like the doors, a heat pump, a coffee machine and more.
The project is also seeking grant funding from various government programs and Jarvis is confident they will get some support from those as well.
Although there is still lots of planning and fundraising to be done Jarvis says they hope to open the new food hub by Spring 2025.
You can find more details on the project on the We Feed Lunenburg website.
