EMERGENCY FOOD HAMPERS
Calgary Transit Community Outreach Team
Partnership Profile
The Calgary Food Bank is most well-know for its Emergency Food Hamper program, which provides families and individuals with up to 10 days worth of food. A hamper is mainly made up of grains, fresh fruits, vegetables and protein foods— things that require a kitchen to prepare.
People experiencing the most severe forms of food insecurity may not have access to a kitchen, this is especially true of the unhoused population.
Ensuring the unhoused population has access to appropriate food is a vital part of our mission to make food accessible to everyone in our city. We also want to ensure that the support we offer is more than just a temporary solution to hunger. By partnering with organizations like the City of Calgary Transit Community Outreach Team, we can ensure that the food we give plays a part in connecting individuals to long term solutions for underlying issues.
The COT Team is a partnership between Transit peace officers and outreach workers from Alpha house. Part of their day-to-day involves visiting transit stations to connect with vulnerable folks who need support. The goal of these interactions isn’t to clear out transit platforms, but rather to connect with people and see what supports they might need. Distributing snacks is often an effective icebreaker that can then lead to longer conversations.
The snacks distributed are ready to eat, easy to open items like Ensure protein drinks, fruit cups, granola bars and cans of tuna with pull-tabs.
These food items serve as a conversation-starter for the more vulnerable things in a person’s life, allowing outreach workers to offer solutions. Affordable housing waitlists, detox programs and shelters are all resources that folks can be referred to.
Trust must be built before these referrals can happen. As one officer explains,
“You wouldn’t want to just open up to any stranger about what is vulnerable in your life, food is at least something we can do for them.”
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