Food security workshop

James Bay Community Project

By Aaren Topley, Community Kitchen Coordinator and Catriona Campbell, Coordinator of Volunteers

Working at James Bay Community Project (JBCP) over the summer as a coop student has had a profound impact on me.  I was given the opportunity to be the community kitchen coordinator and an even greater opportunity to work with the youth at JBCP's Victoria Youth Clinic in downtown Victoria. This experience has helped me to determine my future education goals and increased my desire to work on food security issues.

At the Youth Clinic I designed and ran a program that looked at food security issues among at-risk youth. Food security refers to an individual's access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that fulfills their dietary needs. 

The program ran once a week for 3 months. It offered a healthy meal and interesting conversation about different diets and ways to access and cook healthy food and to help the youth look critically at the food they are consuming. We served the meal at 4:30pm and for many of the youth this was the first meal they had had all day.  It seems to be a growing trend that many youth only have one meal a day. In a discussion with a few youth about their food consumption they said to me that it was easy to get as much bread or baked goods as they wanted, but vegetables and fruits are hard to come by.

 For many of these youth their daily diet relies on what foods are donated to the food banks and free food services. Currently all the food banks in Victoria including our food cupboard are very short of all kinds of food, especially good quality and nutritious food.

At this point you may be wondering what are good foods to donate to James Bay Community Project for feeding youth or donating to people who need more nutritious food. Here are some examples: whole wheat pastas and crackers; rice, quinoa and other grains; low-sodium soup; dried fruit and nuts; bean, lentil, minestrone or split pea soup; canned beans (kidney, garbanzo, pinto, baked etc.); canned tuna, chicken, ham or salmon; unopened dairy products; fresh fruit and produce.

We have been very fortunate to get a City of Victoria grant to start the process of introducing healthy meals and education to the street youth who attend the Youth Clinic, but we need financial support to continue both the healthy meals as well as the staff to prepare food and provide the ongoing support these street youth need to find ways to access healthy food.  

We will be training a family food skills facilitator (Aaren) through the Canadian Diabetes Association which will enable us to offer free Food Skills workshops to people on a limited budget or to new immigrants. This series of six workshops encourages people to eat better for less, through cooking new recipes and eating together. Participants will also take food home with them. The next series will begin in early October, so if you want more information or to register please contact Catriona at 250-388-7844 Ext 308.

VIHA is providing a nutritionist and financial support for us to do a series of six weeks for seniors who need to change their diets for health reasons or who are losing interest in cooking for themselves. This is an opportunity for socializing, learning new healthy recipes and cooking and eating together. If you are interested in being involved, please call Catriona at 250-388-7844 Ext 308.

The James Bay Community Project always appreciates donations towards our food security programs and thanks you for your contributions.