Island Food Caring

Let’s take hunger off the table.

You see them every day and don’t even know it. Our hidden hungry, the over 50,000 people in Greater Victoria that are food insecure, living with fear and worry not knowing where their next meals may come from, unable to afford healthy food options.

Island Food Caring is a fellowship of caring organizations committed to helping provide fresh and healthy food for families in need in Greater Victoria; while diverting close to 4,000 lbs of food waste from our landfill every day.

By changing the way we look at food and the way we distribute it, we can create a more sustainable community, we can provide hope and dignity to those who need it. We can take hunger off the table.

1,200,000 lbs

of food from grocery stores diverted from the landfill annually.

50,000

people in Victoria are food insecure.

The journey to end hunger starts here

Island Food Caring raises awareness and much needed funds in our community for the Food Rescue Project — working to eliminate food insecurity in our region, while diverting waste from our landfills. The Food Share Network, a collaboration of over 50 not-for-profit organizations, created The Food Rescue Project with our grocery retailer partners and has been collecting and distributing fresh healthy food through the Food Security Distribution Centre (run by Mustard Seed) to 35,000 people across the capital region at the neighbourhood-level since 2017.

Thanks to our founding partners, Island Food Caring currently feeds eight schools, nine Indigenous communities, food banks, seniors housing facilities, the coalition of neighbourhood houses. Over 35,000 people every month.

Founding Grocers: Country Grocer, Fairway Market, Red Barn Market, The Root Cellar & Thrifty Foods

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It takes a community to feed the community

Since launching in March 2017 with the opening of the Food Security Distribution Centre, the Food Rescue Project has been collecting over 4,000 lbs of fresh food daily and re-distributing it through a community network of more than 50 organizations including non-profits, First Nations and public schools, feeding an estimated 35,000 people each month. An estimated 1.2 million lbs of fresh healthy food from local grocery stores would otherwise be destined for the landfill annually.

The Food Rescue project was made possible by the Victoria Foundation matching funds with the Rotary Clubs of Greater Victoria for a total of $200,000 to seed the project. An additional $215,000 of grant funding was distributed to seven organizations in April 2018 by the Victoria Foundation in ongoing partnership with the Rotary Clubs of Greater Victoria, with the 54th World Championship International Golfing Fellowship of Rotary held at Bear Mountain raising over $75,000 and Victoria Rotary raising $16,000 through their annual gala.

This supports the project’s continued expansion to new communities, and in reducing additional food waste through the installation of a commercial kitchen to process rescued food into soups and value added products for distribution to the food insecure. Organizations participating in the Food Rescue Project that have received support so far include:

Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness
The Coalition of Neighbourhood Houses
The Mustard Seed Street Church
Oaklands Community Association
Silver Threads Service
Victoria Single Parent Resource Society
Our Place Society
St. Vincent de Paul of Vancouver Island

These are just a few of the more than 50 organizations dedicated to a food secure region!