Food hamper program for impoverished seniors, refugees launches funding campaign

Grocery Run, a weekly food hamper program serving hundreds of impoverished seniors and refugees, has launched a GoFundMe campaign as its sources of pandemic funding dry up.

The program has grown from supporting 100 families before the pandemic to 510 currently, said Julia Tran, food dignity program manager with the Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative (MHBC), which helps operate Grocery Run.

About half of the 3,200 individuals the program serves are children and 10 to 12 per cent are seniors.

But the $150,000 that Grocery Run has been receiving from the Edmonton Community Foundation, United Way, food rescue charity Second Harvest, the federal government and private donors was short-term oriented.

“They were focused on emergency response rather than on longer-term strategies. I anticipate (funding) will end by December,” Tran said. “A lot of granting bodies have limitations on what you can spend money on. As a workers’ co-op we aren’t recognized as a non-profit. That’s an additional challenge we have to navigate.”

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