By Sarah Flemming
Executive Director, United Way of Colchester County
As seen in the February, 2024 issue of the Shoreline Journal
We often get asked, “Why support United Way when we can go directly to the organization with the hands on experience in the community?”
The simplest answer is that we recognize the organizations who have the greatest need.
When the Urgent Food and Essentials Fund was introduced earlier this month by the Department of Community Services (DCS), we were once again pleased to partner with them to meet the immediate needs of the community.
The purpose of the Urgent Food and Essentials Fund is to support local nonprofits that are already running food and essentials programs and will support communities by providing funds to organizations that have the capacity to provide groceries, essentials, meal kits, meals, grocery store gift cards to Nova Scotians who are experiencing food insecurity. This fund prioritizes opportunities that offer dignified, choice-based approaches to food and essentials and offers support to people who are most affected by food insecurity.
We put a call out to our contacts across Colchester, Cumberland, and West Hants and we received applications from over 20 agencies requesting a total of over half a million dollars. We identified the areas of greatest need and were able to work with DCS to allocate $266,000, while impacting as many points across the three counties as we could.
We were sadly not surprised by the overwhelming response for support. The number of asks indicate to us the increasing demand from people experiencing significant food insecurity that traditional emergency food delivery methods are not able to keep up with. Across rural communities, we see food deserts, lack of transportation, and limited or affordable options to feed folks. Because of this, we wanted to allow agencies to support people in need through choice based and autonomous decisions that work best for them.
United Way maintains relationships with both grass roots and established resources to ensure funding gets where it is most needed. We are proud of the work happening in rural and remote communities and the ingenuity that exists on a hyper local level. Issues like food insecurity, affordable housing, and poverty require a collaborative, first voice approach – United Way is honoured to hold this community knowledge, and advocate with collective voices to move the needle.