‘We started with a shelf and it turned into a whole house’

Right now, the house is a food pantry. If the people who run it have their way, it’ll become more like the beating heart of Norman Wells.

Jaime Kearsey and Katie Tetreault have big dreams for their operation. As town staff, they have nursed the food pantry from tiny beginnings four years ago to a vital service for dozens of residents in the town of 600.

“Even though it started just outside the town office as a little shelf, it pretty-much has turned into a whole house. We have rooms that are full of food,” Kearsey said as she gave a tour of the building this week.

A visit by Food Banks Canada and Nutrition North to the Sahtu has come at the right time for the food pantry – which knows it is helping residents but isn’t sure where future funding will come from.

Imperial Oil and Enbridge, companies deeply connected to the Norman Wells oil field, helped acquire the house for the food pantry and paid its utility bills for the past two years.

Now, with the oil field likely to shut down in the next decade, Imperial has handed over the property. The utilities are now the food pantry’s own to figure out.

Generous donations from residents and companies like Rampart Rentals and the Northern store have kept the food pantry going, filling entire rooms of the house with dried goods. Four or five freezers sit laden with frozen meat, vegetables and fruit.

The NWT government donated $150,000 last fall as residents faced rising costs after the summer barge resupply season failed, robbing Norman Wells of vital deliveries – or forcing residents and businesses to pay for delivery by air.

The staff have taken those donations and turned them into a solid foundation. Now, the conversation is about the funding to take the next step.

“It took a long time to get here,” said Kearsey.

“It took a lot of different funding from different companies like Imperial, Enbridge, all the businesses in our community, some of the more privileged people in our community. Now we serve up to 30 families. At one point, we were at 65 families over the winter.

“We want it to be more than just a place to come and get food. We want to offer a safe space in multiple different ways for people to come and get the help they need, whether that is people with addictions, people wanting a place to stay, teaching people how to make a meal out of the things we get that they receive in the food pantry – and just a safe space to have a bit of fun that doesn’t involve alcohol or anything like that.”

‘If you can’t feed your animal, here you go’

Food Banks Canada is a national charity that supports networks of food banks across the country. Nutrition North is a federal subsidy program designed to lower the cost of food in isolated communities.

Representatives of both organizations joined Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely on a trip through all Sahtu communities over the past week. Reporters from the CBC and Cabin Radio were invited to join the trip.

In Norman Wells – the first stop – the food pantry is an example of an initiative those groups might support, as well as an example of the town adjusting to its circumstances.

That doesn’t just mean catering to people who find the cost of living difficult to cope with. It also means adapting when the barge season fails.

This year, to avoid a repeat of last year’s chaos, the food pantry teamed up with Rampart Rentals to get what should be a year’s supply of dried goods – costing roughly $50,000 – up the winter road before it closed.

In the house that forms a base for the food pantry, you can find cans that don’t expire until the 2040s. Each month, nearly 30 families rely on food hampers from the pantry. A dozen Elders are on the list for home delivery.

The pantry even offers pet food.

“We don’t want to tell people they can’t have their animals. People get into different situations,” said Kearsey.

“What people tend to do when they can’t feed their animal is just let them out. We’ve taken that away. Now, if you can’t feed your animal – whether you’re a food pantry user or not, if you’re going through a difficult month and you just need some help – here you go.”

How can Food Banks Canada, Nutrition North help?

Next, the pantry staff want to turn the building’s garden into a place where people can grow their own food. They want to start offering hot meals and teaching people to cook.

But with the gradual departure of Imperial and Enbridge – which donated turkeys worth $2,000 last Christmas alone – the pantry needs new backers.

Mayor Frank Pope, who staff described as having “no shame” in pestering leaders until solutions are found, homed in on this with the Foods Bank Canada and Nutrition North reps in the room on Monday.

“We’ve got a considerable cost to operate the building,” he said, pegging utilities at up to $5,000 a month in winter.

“We’re now at the stage where Imperial Oil, are they going to be here for the long haul to keep supporting us? Enbridge, are they going to be here for the long haul to keep supporting us? We could lose some of our bigger backers. So that’s why we keep saying we’d like to get some dollars, to make sure we’ve got a stable operation.”

Food Banks Canada said it can help Pope persuade southern groups like egg farmers to follow up on their previous promises to assist. They floated the prospect of skids of eggs arriving in the town on a monthly basis.

Jay Stevens, a program officer at Food Banks Canada, told the town the charity is looking to develop a “food distribution hub” that would see food sourced by the charity more readily distributed to Sahtu communities. That work is at an early stage.

Stevens drew a comparison with southern programs that unite many communities over large areas – for example, from Winnipeg to Moose Factory in Manitoba and northern Ontario – and combine their purchasing power, bringing down the cost of food.

Food Banks Canada is also planning to roll out a grant program that will help a food pantry like the one in Norman Wells with upkeep, maintenance and capacity to get things done.

Nutrition North, meanwhile, said the money it flows into the region through groups like the Sahtu Secretariat can support shelves, freezers, storage space and administrative costs – with relatively few reporting requirements.

No judging

The groups will head south at the end of this week and begin to pull together notes from each community they visited. (Watch for more reporting from the trip on Cabin Radio in the days ahead.)

In the meantime, the food pantry staff will do what they can to drive more community participation in the project.

A spring clean-up day on Friday, May 16 is a chance to keep the pantry at the front of residents’ mind and drive donations, said Katie Tetreault, a recreation manager who helps at the pantry.

“I want to do it in a way where people can donate to the food pantry then you get a bag, you get assigned a street and you just pick up any garbage on the street,” Tetreault said of her spring clean-up plan.

“When they bring their garbage back, they get a ticket and we’re going to draw four different prizes.”

Those prizes include a round trip to and from Yellowknife via Northwright Airways, another local donor helping the pantry do its job.

Tetreault can’t help but see opportunities all around the building for it to be more than a food pantry.

“We have plans in the future to hopefully make it like a nice, comfy space so we can put on movies for people, so you’re not just coming and getting your food and leaving,” she said.

“While it might seem silly to have a washer and dryer here, our couch-surfers can come and wash their clothes. They can take a quick shower,” said Kearsey.

“Our building and our policy is no judgment anywhere. So we invite everyone in. You won’t be judged.”