Meal Box Program
Between June 2022 and January 2024, Fresh Food Weekly operated the Fresh Food Weekly 'Meal Box Program' at Countryside United Church in Thornton, Ont., located 15 minutes south of the City of Barrie. To briefly summarize what we did throughout this period; we raised funds to buy fresh food at wholesale, then packed this food into meal boxes and delivered these meal boxes to the front doorsteps of low-income households every other Tuesday afternoon and evening (between 4:00 PM and 7:00 PM).
Our operational activities
We
Gathered
Funds
We
Sourced
in Bulk
We
Fulfilled
Orders
We
Delivered
to Doorsteps
The cost of food to feed 90 households biweekly was $5,400.00 every four weeks. The majority of our income came from donations, while a small portion came from fundraising.
During our region's harvest months, the local agriculture economy produces a myriad of vegetables - mostly root and leafy greens. Throughout the entire year, though, grain products such as breads and baked goods were often donated in high quantities as well. However, human beings need more than just root vegetables and leafy greens to live on. They need protein and iron too. And if disadvantaged people have any chance at improving their mental health and getting off their medications, they need toilet paper. End of story. Since Fresh Food Weekly purchased in bulk just like grocery stores, it was able to get the same prices as grocery stores, or even "at cost" prices. These cost-savings enabled Fresh Food Weekly to buy quality products and premium brands while still getting a great deal.
Fresh Food Weekly was focused on delivering food that’s fresh and arrives to program recipients in the same shape it arrives when Instacart drivers deliver food to paying customers. To help us do that, a couple local businesses stepped up and provided the delivery bags and bread boxes needed to keep food intact during the delivery process.
Fresh Food Weekly didn't offer its program recipients pickup and only offered free delivery, every other Tuesday evening between 4PM and 7PM. Fresh Food Weekly wasn't a food bank and didn’t store food. Instead, it was a food delivery service that operated in a similar way as Instacart. The only difference was, it was only for recipients on the Fresh Food Weekly meal box delivery program. Fresh Food Weekly knows that for low-income families, accessing fresh and nutritious food was and continues to be just as much of a barrier to accessing nutritious food as the barrier of coming up with the funds to pay for the food itself.
Gleaning Fields
When Fresh Food Weekly first started giving out free fresh produce to low-income families, our first Holland Marsh farmer was Matt Reesor of ’Fresh Veggies at 60 Aileen’. Leah would actually go out on his fields and harvest the lettuce with him.
From there, she’d take the lettuce and drop if off to the Barrie Community Fridge, where people were waiting for it since it came weekly at that time. Fresh Food Weekly was literally giving out produce that had been harvested within half an hour.
Furthermore, Barrie Hill Farms in Springwater has a fantastic network of irrigation systems for their wide range of crops. They have many blueberries - it would take a few hundred volunteers at minimum, to glean their patches.
Our meal boxes
What went in our meal box meal kits?
"We provided our recipients with fresh, high-quality foods from local suppliers and food businesses."
Holiday Meal Boxes
Fresh Food Weekly also delivered special holiday meal boxes for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. These meal boxes included twice as much food as our regular, on-going meal boxes - and therefore cost twice as much, but they included many holiday-specific items that we decided were holiday "must-haves". We also opened up the holiday meal boxes to anyone who was low-income in Barrie and Innisfil (not just disabled or elderly low-income families). Please note, at Christmas time especially, food donations skyrocket.
Easter
Thanksgiving
Christmas
Our recipient responsibilities
Food Order Forms
Each meal box was planned out in advance - but not too far out in advance because you can never count of food prices staying the same for long. Each month, all the meal boxes for that month were planned at once; there were usually just two delivery days each month but some months had three. For each meal box, recipients were required to fill out a food order form, as to reduce as much food waste as possible, as well as because of the variant choices offered. For example, there were many types of milk and bread variants offered, and recipients always had the choice of not choosing to receive something if they didn’t like it as well. Additionally, we would sometimes offer recipients their choice of one out of two items. However, we only did this once with fruit because we knew that 90 percent of the recipients wanted both and it felt awful making them choose only one. We decided to only do this with vegetables like Brussel sprouts because we knew a large portion of recipients wouldn’t eat Brussel sprouts; so we gave the option of Brussel sprouts or broccoli. Programs that offer choices between items that recipients are familiar with, as well as items they’re less likely to have been exposed to, will increase their likelihood of trying it. Food order form emails also included each form's deadline submission date, and any other program updates or information they needed to know. Upon submitting food order forms, recipients would receive an automated confirmation email with their delivery day details, which included the same delivery time frame of: “sometime between 4:00 PM and 7:00 PM”. Recipients also received a reminder email the day before each delivery day with a more accurate estimated time of delivery, which would be a one-hour time frame. However, there was always a “please note” area explaining that their meal box delivery could be late due to things like traffic (especially in the summer on weekends), when volunteers have to work later than they expected or just don’t show up, or have legitimate cancellations, or because of bad weather. In fact, Leah was literally in the middle of doing deliveries in Barrie when the tornado hit in July 2021. She was driving northbound on the 400 and saw about 20 ambulances fly past her southbound moments after the tornado touched down.
Receive Meal Box
People were only eligible for the meal box delivery program if they had a home. Not only did the majority of food items delivered require refrigeration and/or freezing, they also included all the ingredients needed to make a meal. Therefore, being on this program also required recipients to have cookware, cooking appliances and adequate food storage capabilities. Program recipients were also required to have someone home to receive their meal box, or they could arrange to have it delivered to a friend or family member instead, if they already knew in advance that they weren’t going to be home on a delivery day. The reason we required someone to be home to receive their meal box is because of the amount of refrigerated and frozen food that could have gone bad if it was left in the sun for too long on a hot summer day, or left at the door base inside an apartment building. Furthermore, meal boxes left unattended could get stolen, and Leah was adamant with recipients about not wasting perfectly good food when there were hundreds of other people waiting to be on the program, who were more than happy to make themselves, or someone in their household, or even someone they knew and trusted, available for one hour every other Tuesday evening to receive their fresh food meal box delivery. Some people have asked about making the process of filling out food order forms simpler by having some sort of food preferences profile, and eliminate the need to fill out biweekly food order forms altogether. However, we noticed a direct correlation between the date recipients submitted their biweekly food order forms and the recipients who didn’t receive a meal box because they weren’t home. The recipients who filled out their food order forms as soon as they were available never seemed to miss a delivery. The ones who were constantly forgetting to fill out their forms, were also constantly forgetting to answer their door when their driver knocked, or answer their phone when their driver called. We've learned that if recipients can’t be bothered to submit a food order form that takes less than two minutes to fill out, they’re unlikely to be bothered to remember to be home for one-hour every other Tuesday, even with the reminder sent the day before. What If Their Mental Health Caused A Receiving Problem? If, for whatever reason, a recipient wasn’t able to receive a meal box, i.e., they had a legitimate memory problem (this is a bad example but it’s an example nonetheless), and if they had parents in town, we would arrange to have their meal boxes delivered to their parents address instead. Of all the recipients on our program, we did this for two recipients. And for a third recipient, we dropped his meal box off to his referring agency since he wasn't good at receiving his meal box. He also didn’t have a cell phone or landline, and it was impossible to get ahold of him at all times. What About Missed Deliveries? Recipients could reach out to Leah no earlier than two hours after their one-hour estimated delivery time frame to inform her of their delivery not showing up. Of all the deliveries we did, only one was missed and it was delivered the next day by an Instacart. We decided to just buy the exact same items from the grocery store since we gave away all the extra food to other local charities the night before.
Cook Meals
We also noticed that many of our program recipients enjoyed cooking meal box meals and providing pictures of their final product. Many recipients would take pictures of their cooked meals and either post it directly to Leah’s Facebook wall, or text it to her for her to post because they wanted to remain anonymous. This shows that recipients were taking pride in their newly acquired knowledge and cooking skillset. Peer affirmation on social media appears to be an effective driver to creating healthy eating habits among program recipients.
Chicken Parm
Meatballs
Salmon
Lasagna
Eat Fresh Food
The goal of the meal box delivery program was to ensure low-income families received fresh food, could cook it, and eat meals at home. Were There Many Complaints? Oh yes. But there were way more gratitudes and thank-you’s. The best part about the meal box program is the feeling volunteers get when they see the look on someone’s face upon delivery; the look of relief.
