In 2022 Partners in Mission Food Bank recognized that we had outgrown our long-time home at 140 Hickson Avenue and in order to serve our clients better needed to make changes. We reviewed renovating the 140 Hickson space and quickly realized that in addition to losing most of our parking, we could not significantly improve our operations.

 

At that point we started to see what buildings were available in our area and we had an opportunity to look at 4 Harvey Street before it was ready for the market. The building was larger than what we were looking for but had so many positives. We completed the purchase at the end of April 2024 and our planning started.

 

For our new space we wanted to completely redesign how we help our clients. We wanted our clients to come in out of the weather, dramatically reduce lines and create an enjoyable experience. This resulted in designing a small grocery store so our clients could come in and choose the foods their family would eat as they would at any other grocery store visit.

 

In our design phase we added a commercial cooler like you see in every grocery store. It is the exact same as what you would find at any grocery store. Behind the glass doors you will find eggs, milk, cheese, and fresh produce. We received a Loyalist Township community grant of $50,000 and a Feed Ontario grant of $35,000 towards the cost of the cooler. After the cooler are our glass door freezers, where our clients can get frozen vegetables, meat, meat alternatives and other frozen items. We received a grant from the Community Foundation for Kingston and area for a new 3-door freezer and already owned two single door freezers. This has made this area extremely easy to access.

 

Our aisles resemble Costco, or if you remember the old Valdee’s, with pallets in rows. The pallet system reduces the amount of restocking we need to do. As we help 85-100 households every day, we did not want to add a large number of new volunteers to stock shelves. Our pantry items are similar to what we had in our food hampers. Pasta, pasta sauce, cereal, soups, rice, lentils, chickpeas, and many other items, including hygiene and pet food are located in our aisles.

 

In the back, we have increased our volunteer sorting area significantly. We have more dedicated space to sort and glean fresh fruit and vegetables. With this additional space we have been able to save more produce from grocery stores and prevent it from going to farmers or landfill. We have increased the capacity of our cooler significantly too, which enables us to store and distribute these foods much more efficiently.

 

Our warehouse space is more than twice what we had before. This enables us to manage funds better by purchasing larger volumes and taking advantage of deal pricing. Now that we have truck level loading docks and space to manage volumes, we will be looking to partner with other similar organizations in the near future to see what advantages we can gain with group purchasing.

 

Our freezer is also more than twice the size of our old one, which will enable us to purchase larger volumes of frozen foods. Kinsmen Kingston gave us a grant of $100,000 towards it. We deeply appreciate this generous support.

 

Late summer we will be installing our emergency generator to ensure that not only is our food kept at the ideal temperature, we will be able to operate in the event of a power outage. The foundation has generously donated $100,000 towards the cost of the unit and installation. Partners in Mission Food Bank will be looking to improve how we can respond to community emergencies in the future.

 

Our construction partners were great to work with and from the original hopes to the actual design the only notable change was the cooler had to be rotated 90 degrees due to building structural supports. We were fortunate to have few delays due to materials and equipment challenges. Of the challenges we faced, our dedicated partners helped find solutions.

 

We have been open and fully operational since April 29. Our clients absolutely love the new experience. Our volunteers are really enjoying the impact of neighbour helping neighbour firsthand.

 

I want to say a huge thank you to our donors, volunteers, architects, city of Kingston staff, construction partners, and trades people. You have helped bring our dreams to reality.