Every year, Feed Ontario provides funding to our network of food banks to help them meet the unique needs of their communities with our Feeding Possibility! Grant Program. This can look like upgrading food banks’ essential infrastructure by purchasing refrigerators, shelving, or packing tables, or innovative projects that create new programs to make food more accessible to those in need in their community.
In 2024 Feeding Possibility! Grants provided $279,000 to support 20 projects that help strengthen the services and programming our member food banks can offer to their communities.
Our impact, at a glance
Our grant program is made up of two streams: Feeding Fundamentals, that focuses on strengthening operations through purchasing equipment like ladders, freezers, or upgraded flooring, and Feeding Inspiration, that helps food banks implement new and exciting programs like partnering with local schools to provide snacks to students each day.
Feeding Fundamentals
The Feeding Fundamentals stream supported 12 projects this year. Each of the grants have helped food banks increase their operational capacity and efficiency and have provided additional support to volunteers.
Nearly half of the Feeding Fundamentals grant recipients used their grants to purchase larger and more efficient refrigerators or freezers. Because 57% of the food Feed Ontario provides to food banks is fresh or frozen, expanding the amount of refrigerated space food banks have allows them to accept more nutritious food to meet the increasing needs in their communities.
The new freezers Gananoque Food Bank was able to purchase through the Feeding Possibility! Grant.
Often, the purchase of new refrigerators and freezers can support food banks as they make the transition to a market or shopping-model, allowing visitors to select items like they would at the store, improving their experience. When food banks are able to purchase display fridges it helps provide an experience as close to shopping at the grocery store as possible.
For Gananoque Food Bank, the funding came just in time for the freezer to be used to store the food for their Christmas Hamper program. Gananoque was able to use the additional freezer space to provide 225 food boxes packed with everything needed for a warm holiday dinner, including a turkey, to those in need in their community. The increased freezer space will allow the food bank to reduce food waste and accept bigger donations, to better help their visitors all year long.
Killaloe Food Bank used their Feeding Possibility! Grant to purchase a display fridge to assist their transition to a shopping-model.
The Feeding Possibility! Grant also enhanced volunteer safety with an investment in steel-toe boot tips for warehouse workers, increased efficiencies when serving clients with the purchase of new computers, and helped food banks provide more accessible services through Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging training.
Feeding Inspiration
8 projects were funded through the Feeding Inspiration stream this year, to help food banks execute innovative projects that provide new programs, improve access, or facilitate advocacy work.
Cambridge Food Bank used their Feeding Possibility! Grant to install a refrigerated locker, similar to an Amazon pick-up locker, so that households can receive their hamper outside of the food bank’s regular hours.
This allows those who are working or unable to travel to the food bank during business hours to collect the food they need from a local community centre that’s open 7 days a week.
Cambridge Food Bank created an after hours refrigerated pick-up locker with the help of a Feed Ontario grant. Photo by Doug Coxson, Cambridge Today.
Gravenhurst Against Poverty developed the School Fuel Program, designed to provide snacks to local elementary schools on a bi-weekly basis.
At Harvest Share Parry Sound, their community meal project has helped provide a meal twice a month to their community. In addition to providing healthy food to those in need, it offers people an opportunity to socialize and make connections, with 100 people attending community meals, prepared and served by local individual and business volunteers.
To better meet the needs of the communities their network serves, Food Banks Mississauga created a program to distribute foods specific to African and Caribbean culture. The program has already had an impact on visitors’ emotional well-being and helped bridge social gaps, allowing recipients feel seen and respected within the community.
“It makes me feel a sense of representation, a sense of belonging, and that there is care. It reminds me of home away from home.” – Food Bank Mississauga Visitor
Food Banks Mississauga has created a culturally responsive food program with their Feeding Possibility! Grant.
Daily Bread Food Bank used their Feeding Possibility! Grant to expand their Information and Referrals program by creating kits to help individuals who don’t have access to phones or technology. In-person volunteers are connecting food bank visitors to resources that can help to supplement income, assist with employment, housing, dental, health and mental health services, furniture, clothing banks, and more. So far, volunteers have made over 400 referrals.
To learn more, check out our 2024-25 Impact Report to find out how we feed possibility across the province.