NDG Food Depot Annual Food Drive: St. Philip's Assists its Outreach Partner

On Saturday November 30th, St. Philip's Church was transformed into a food distribution center for its outreach partner, the NDG Food Depot. The food drive has been an annual community tradition for 15 years. Not only did St. Philip's serve as a drop-off point, and distribution center, crews from the church joined hundreds of volunteers and knocked on doors to collect non-perishable food items from the local community in Montreal West and NDG.

Thousands of bags of food and other donations were collected to help the Depot with its important work. With 22.8 percent of the population of the Island of Montreal living in poverty, the Food Depot is a valuable community asset.

This has been both a difficult and a rewarding year for the Depot which has been a community institution for a quarter century. In March they lost their home of 20 years after they received an unexpected demolition notice. Despite these challenges they ushered in new programs and more dignified ways of distributing food to give people more choices. They are currently located in a temporary space at Trinity church, but they are still looking for a permanent location.

“The food that we collect today basically provides food for our emergency food service from now until next November, December,” said director Kimberly Martin in a Global News interview.

Notre-Dame-de-Grace Liberal MNA Kathleen Weil said the food depot is vital to the community, helping more than 700 people every week, and that’s why her office offered $6,000 to the organization.

“The needs are greater and greater every year. I think that's the important point, unfortunately. We would like not to have to have food banks, but we need food banks,” she said.

The NDG Food Depot has a highly-engaged Board of Directors and a hardworking staff, but they need your help throughout the year.

For more information or to provide assistance to the NDG Food Depot click here or call (514) 483-4680