Rhino's Ramblings - Food Security 30 Years Later

By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary

For over 30 years the Moose Jaw and District Food Bank has served Moose Jaw but in reality it was an organization that like itself and Hunger In Moose Jaw were suppose to long ago have had their obituaries written.

From its infancy the Moose Jaw and District Food Bank was not suppose to be a permanent institution.

The local Food Bank was actually part of a nation-wide movement to solve what was seen as a short-term problem. There were people in a country as rich as Canada who could not afford healthy and wholesome food at the same time good food was being thrown out.

It was a downward spiral of hungry people needing help to excel in life at the same time part of the solution was being tossed into the trash. A paradox that was keeping the poor from becoming full participants in the dream of better lives we all have.

And Moose Jaw, like so many other places in Saskatchewan in the 1980’s and into the 1990’s, was economically depressed. Jobs were scarce it seemed and even if you did get one it was minimum wage and you were lucky to get full-time hours. And yes the stories were true about the CPR station’s parking lot there actually was a pile of tumbleweeds often sitting there.

Mortgage rates peaking at 20 percent in 1981 seemed to be the start of a decline in Moose Jaw from the great heydays of the 1970’s when there was plenty of growth throughout the province. It was a time wheat was king and there was plenty of money and opportunity kicking around.

This is the world the Food Bank was born in.

.Decades later I can still remember being a reporter at the paper and area farmer and rural politician Ralph Howes telling me about how there was good food in Moose Jaw being thrown away when there were hungry people and children who could make use of it instead of it being hauled out to the landfill.

Additionally there were people, neighbours really, who out of religious, moral or neighbourly beliefs just wanted to lend a hand to help others in a non-judgmental manner and there was no vehicle to do this.

This was the foundation the Food Bank and Hunger in Moose Jaw would be built upon.

The entire effort was seen as a temporary one and in the dreams of the people who originally founded the local Food Bank an institution which should have had its epitaph written a couple of decades ago.

Although it has been over 30 years now since I covered the meetings forming the Food Bank and later Hunger in Moose Jaw I can still remember the words Ralph Howes told me why he got involved.

He was not getting involved because he wanted to make people dependent upon the Food Bank but he was involved because it was the right thing to do. A way to temporarily help out those who needed a helping hand. For Howes it was not suppose to be a permanent support but one that would help people down on their luck to concentrate on bettering their lives without having to worry about where the next meal came from.

Howes challenged me to just go about an ordinary day with nothing to eat, just drink plain water and then try to concentrate on my job and see how it feels and then put myself in the shoes of an elementary school child trying to concentrate with a hungry stomach. And then try to blame the child for not being able to excel at school and get the education that would lead the next generation out of poverty.

I took him up on the challenge and let me tell you at that time it was one of the worst days of my life and by the time I reached midnight he made me a believer.

And decades later it is the same story.

Sure I have heard the same complaints from the critics of the Food Bank, that there are lots of people who take advantage of the situation. There always will be I suppose those who use the system just as there will be exaggerated claims about the level of abuse.

There always will be I suppose those who use the system. But at the same time there are those who really need the helping hand to get them by and allow them the opportunity to improve their lives.

And none of what I write here is intended to take away from the numerous other efforts - both public and private - in the community who lend a helping hand to others. Most often done anonymously.

In my two conversations I have had with those working at the Moose Jaw and District Food Bank over the past year I have always asked the question about the Food Bank actually becoming embedded in the City. Because of the demand and the need in the community they are still around perhaps decades after they set out initially to permanently close their doors.

They, like Howes and many others who have now passed on, still believe in the dream that their ultimate goal is to work themselves out of a job. Both told me the same basic thing that their greatest joy would be if their mission to ensure food security was completed and they could go and find other jobs.

Perhaps sort of like locking the front door and then tossing the keys down the nearest sewer would best describe their ultimate goal.

The goal they based their foundation on decades ago continues to this day.

Food waste continues in Moose Jaw and yes I have seen how a person can actually live under the grid on simply what the restaurants were prepared to throw away.

The pandemic has hit families differently and there are some families who have weathered the storm quite well while there are others who through no fault of their own have lost not only employment but income. It has lead to people who would have never considering it before having to use the Food Bank to help make it through the pandemic.

When they really needed it the Food Bank was there for them.

Later today the Moose Jaw and District Food Bank will be releasing major news in its evolution to its mission and they will also be at Council’s Executive Committee asking for the City to help them to take another great step to fulfill their mission to one day lock the doors as there is no longer any need for their services.

It is a lofty goal, perhaps in the end unachievable, but when it comes right down to it the neighbourly thing to do.