Vancouver Food Runners is looking for more volunteers in Surrey this holiday season.
The charity helps “redirect surplus food from businesses to community partners working with clients experiencing food insecurity,” reads a post on its website.
So far in 2023, Vancouver Food Runners did around 6,300 pickups, which is about 1.13 million pounds of surplus food that it rescued and delivered, Chloe Leslie, program manager, said. “Most of our food is surplus, so that means it is donated food that was otherwise not able to be sold,” Leslie added.
In Surrey, the organization partners with the City Reach Care Society, which brings hampers that include dairy, bread, deli produce, fresh produce, and eggs.
These food hampers have a huge impact on families, Nicole Preston, Surrey director for City Reach Care Society, said.
“Now they have extra income because they don’t have to pay for these groceries,” Preston added.
She heard from one family that they were able to purchase some much-needed medication because of the extra income.
The food rescue charity, which launched its food rescue mission in Vancouver in March 2020, recently expanded to Surrey last month and is in need of more volunteers.
“We’re excited because we already have about 200 volunteers in Surrey who have downloaded our app,” Leslie said.
But more is needed.
“I would say to really successfully launch, we will be looking probably to double that number in 2024.”
Volunteers are doing three pickups per week and delivering to four elementary schools in the Guildford area. Leslie believes they have the capacity to expand beyond that.
“We want to make sure that anyone can volunteer,” Leslie said. “So whether you’re on a bike, whether you have a small vehicle, or whether you have a large vehicle, there’s always going to be a pickup available for you.”
South Surrey resident Kevin Green shows up every week with his two young boys to help deliver food hampers to a nearby school.
Green saw a video about the organization and was intrigued.
It’s now become a weekly fun activity that he and his kids get to do together, Green said.
To volunteer, download the Vancouver Food Runners app and create an account. Then, you will be able to see all the food rescues available in your area.
There is no time commitment. The app gives you the option to pick a singular pick-up or commit to a weekly pick-up at the same place. Leslie said it even has an easy solution to ask for a sub if you cannot make your weekly pickup.
“We try to match up all of our food donors from the donor to recipient as closely as possible. So generally, we want people to be travelling in the car for less than like 10- 15 minutes with the food.”
Tristan Jagger founded the organization in 2020 after “she found out that about one in six students in British Columbia are going to school without adequate nutrition and she wanted to see what she could do,” Leslie said.
Throughout the course of her research, she came across a software that a company in Pittsburgh developed called 412 Food Rescue. After obtaining a licence for the software, Vancouver Food Runners launched in March 2020.
Vancouver Food Runners also works in North Vancouver, Richmond, and Burnaby.
They currently work with close to 200 food businesses in Vancouver and are always looking for more.
They not only pick up from traditional businesses like grocery stores and restaurants, but they also work with Rogers Arena, the Vancouver Whitecaps training program, and conference spaces. They work “with a lot of different places that didn’t traditionally have a mechanism to donate their surplus food before Vancouver food runners launched.”
To food businesses looking to donate surplus food and non-profits looking to receive it, visit vancouverfoodrunners.com.
