By Erika Rolling

Community Partnership

Northreach and Helping Hands Society team up to fight food insecurity in Grande Prairie

Mar 17, 2023 | 1:31 PM

Two societies in Grande Prairie have decided to work together to tackle a pressing issue for many families and individuals in and around the community.

According to the Community Foundation of Northwestern Alberta, around 16 per cent of households in the region are experiencing food insecurity, higher than the national average.

To address the issue, the Northreach Society and Helping Hands Society of Grande Prairie are working together towards the common goal of ensuring food security for those in need.

Northreach’s Oversight and Program Manager Erika Gilroy says when the idea was brought up to partner by Helping Hands to solve their issue of a lack of space for programming,

“What we thought was… how can we support Helping Hands, another organization in Grande Prairie, to kinda do a lot of the same stuff we’re doing. We’re already doing a lot of harm reduction and for us, food security is a very much a harm reduction approach.”

Gilroy says Helping Hands provides five to ten families every single week with food and currently has a six-week waitlist. She is hoping the partnership gets the word out about their services and makes access easier by them being housed in the same building.

“The folks that we support at Northreach are going to be able to access the services if they haven’t been already. So this is a really unique thing I think for our community for non-profits or community organizations working towards the same things… to partner up!”

Gilroy says they will have several joint initiatives like fundraising, sharing resources, space and knowledge, and collaboration on food distribution to help address gaps in Grande Prairie and help those most in need.

She believes putting resources in the same space will make it easier for those needing and looking for help.

“Part of the partnership is that the Northreach staff are going to be helping out as well, just to kinda help get them set up and support their program as much as possible because they are very much a volunteer-based service.”

“We know that takes a lot of time and they’re helping a lot of folks, so anything we can do to help support them is really what Northreach is hoping to do as well,” Gilroy notes.

The two organizations say they are working towards the complex and pressing issue in our community collaboratively to make a real difference for many individuals and families in the area.