Over the past few weeks, several residents and service providers from Dartmouth East have formed a committee, including Coun. Tony Mancini, East Dartmouth Community Centre, Woodlawn Public Library, The Salvation Army, Port Wallace United Church and myself. This committee has been hard at work, planning and preparing to bring the Mobile Food Market to our community.
There are many needs in Dartmouth, and of them arguably one of the greatest is hunger. The face of hunger is often hidden in a suburban community like ours, but it is most definitely present. We have many great programs like the East Dartmouth Christian Food Bank that already provide support to our community. While the work they do is outstanding, it doesn’t remove all of the barriers that people face.
Sometimes, getting access to nutritious food can be a huge financial obstacle to those of low income or on income assistance. Other times there can be issues around transportation or mobility. The Mobile Food Market will only help to enhance and strengthen supports for individuals and families by providing a box of healthy fruits and vegetables at an equitable price.
The Mobile Food Market provides fresh, high quality and affordable food to communities that are in need. Currently, the Mobile Food Market services locations in Fairview, East Preston, North Preston, north-end Halifax, Spryfield, Harrietsfield and starting June 20 it will include Dartmouth East. In our community of Dartmouth East, the Mobile Food Market will offer produce packs whereby community members will have the opportunity to place an order for a $10 box of fresh fruits and vegetables. Orders can be placed in advance every two weeks and produce packs will be available for pickup at designated locations every second Wednesday.
Sites have been selected by the Mobile Food Market committee for pickup. These pickup points will be the East Dartmouth Community Centre on Caledonia Road, The Salvation Army on Main Street and Port Wallis United Church on Waverley Road. This will begin on June 20. A big thank you to these sites for helping in this great initiative. If you wish to learn more about the Mobile Food Market, visit www.mobilefoodmarket.ca or you can contact my office for further information on this great new initiative at [email protected].
Along with the great news of the Mobile Food Market, my office is thrilled to announce that we have hired a summer student as a community outreach co-ordinator. We were lucky to have many great applicants for the position and have formally hired Claire Belliveau. She began her duties in our office on Tuesday, May 22. She is graduating from the IB program at Prince Andrew High and will be starting university in the fall at Dalhousie in pursuit of a bachelor of arts.
My constituency assistant, Julia Kenney, and I are thrilled to welcome her to the Dartmouth East office and team. Belliveau is a proud Acadian and will work to build relationships in our Acadian and francophone communities in Dartmouth East, along with many other responsibilities. She has many great ideas to improve Dartmouth East and her smart, energetic and hardworking attitude are a welcome addition to the constituency office. We look forward to working with her over the next few months to serve Dartmouth East.