An appetite for helping the community

North Kildonan

For over 25 years, the food bank at McIvor Church (200 McIvor Ave.) has been serving the community in North Kildonan. For its efforts, the program was recently recognized by Harvest Manitoba as its agency of the year.

“It was a shock,” said Rodney Badgley, co-ordinator of the McIvor food bank program. “I’m the face of the group here, but we have over 40 volunteers who each deserve a copy of this award.”

Badgley, also the moderator of McIvor Church, said the food bank program has evolved over the years.

“We used to serve 25 a month, and it has grown,” he said. “We expanded to 25 every other week. Then we started two distributions, one in the morning and one in the evening, each week. So we do approximately 40 in the morning and 30 in the evening, so 70 every week. We also provide a breakfast in the morning, as well.”

Every Thursday morning, McIvor Church bustles with folks getting breakfast and accessing the food bank, making the space a community hub.

“Part of my outreach is making people feel welcome,” said Badgley, who stepped into the role following the COVID-19 pandemic. “When I took over, one of my goals was for this to become a community for these people. It has. They network between each other, they help each other out. It’s more than just a food bank.”

With the morning program offering breakfast, Badgley is hoping to provide regular meals for the evening crowd, as well.

“Every five weeks we’re doing a community dinner,” Badgley said. “I did a little pilot project myself last year, where I just made soup a number of weeks in a row. People became accustomed to staying or coming early to have soup. It’s growing. It continues to be outreach in the community.”

Indeed, the food bank is just one aspect of how McIvor Church strives to be a place where residents can come together. The space is also home to a daycare.

“Everything (here) is kind of integrated together,” Badgley said. “The daycare has expanded, which has been huge for people in the community. Even some of our clients who were looking for daycare spots, it just happened to be the right timing when they were looking at expanding that they were able to register.”

The McIvor Church food bank is run by volunteers, and Badgley said the community is lucky to be home to many who give their time.

“The unique thing about receiving an award, people recognize that you’ve received something and want to be part of it,” he said. “So we’ve had an influx of people wanting to be involved.”

That said, Badgley is quick to add that volunteers are always welcome, and can play a number of different roles.

“I never, ever say ‘no’ to someone who wants to volunteer here. Just like with our clients, it’s very transitional. We have people who volunteer for years, and some can only come once a month,” he said. “We have four events with the food bank for volunteers to be involved. We have Thursday morning distribution, Thursday evening distribution, which starts at 5:30 p.m., we have food receiving on Wednesdays in the afternoon, and we also pick up bread from one of the local grocers three or four times a week.”

Prospective volunteers can drop by the church during food bank hours, call the front office at 204-339-1691, or contact Harvest Manitoba at harvestmanitoba.ca to get involved with a local food program.

“We’re always open for people to come volunteer,” Badgley added.