News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Community Food Redistribution Warehouse opens in Kingston
Community partners come together for new facility to receive, process, store and redistribute large scale food donations

Kingston, ON (March 23, 2022) – In the KFL&A region, and across the country, the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the importance of food access and security. Access to good food has become an essential part of response, recovery, and ongoing stabilization. With this increased need and the influx of large food donations came the idea for a centralized, conveniently located food distribution centre. Today, partners are delighted to launch the new Community Food Redistribution Warehouse (CFRW) that has been collaboratively developed.

Together, Lionhearts, Kingston Community Health Centres (KCHC), the City of Kingston, the United Way of Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington and other agency partners have spent the past year working collaboratively to make the CFRW concept a reality. The City of Kingston and United Way KFL&A have provided long-term multi-year funding. With contributions from Rotary in Kingston and many community partners and stakeholders providing support, this will be a space that can be used by local agencies to centralize and coordinate food reclamation, collection and distribution.

With input from community agencies, the 11,500 ft² CFRW warehouse is equipped with the infrastructure to safely receive, process, store, and redistribute large scale food donations. This warehouse will help build capacity for agencies, helping them access larger donations and local produce, enhancing nutritional value of meals served, allowing them to better maximize their budgets and serve clients.

 “The launch of the Community Food Redistributions Warehouse (CFRW) is eagerly awaited,” said Ronda Candy, Executive Director at Martha’s Table. “At Martha’s we are anticipating an increase in the amount of food items donated; this will reduce our grocery expenses.  The timing couldn’t be better as the cost of groceries is rising significantly and rapidly. The budget relief that additional donations will offer will help ensure that we meet the ever-growing nutritional needs of our community. We are working seven days per week to reduce food insecurity and the support offered by CFRW will be helpful and much appreciated.”

While the space will not be accepting donations from the community like the food bank, the CFRW will be a collaborative and cooperative space working to enhance distribution and collection and help agencies in their efforts to address food insecurity in the region.

Through the pandemic, agencies have worked together to accept donations of large amounts of surplus perishable and non-perishable food and supplies, including fresh food grown by the community. These have been shared among agencies supporting people in need of food and supplies. The CFRW allows for this collaboration to continue and increase capacity and support for frontline agencies to enhance the important work they are doing through provision of food.