Regina Food Bank’s new downtown Food Hub closer to opening its doors

The Regina Food Bank is one step closer to opening its centre where families struggling with food insecurity can access food items like you would at a grocery store.

Located in the downtown area, the Food Hub will give families the opportunity to pick and choose what they need. However, they will need to register and schedule an appointment before coming in.

“What we have done is taken a lot of elements of a grocery store or conventional food shopping and brought to the folks facing food insecurity in our community,” Regina Food Bank CEO John Bailey said.

Bailey said this new model will help reduce waste as people only pick up what they need.

“I think the biggest single benefits people will have is the ability to say yes and no,” Bailey explained. “People like to cook with carrots or oats or whatever it is, and that’s really important because that’s some of the things we take for granted when we are not facing insecurity. The ability to pick and choose the food we want.”

“We would let them know how much quantity they can take of any type of product,” he went on to say.

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Over the past year, the food bank has seen an unprecedented increase in demand, seeing 204,000 points of service at the end of March.

They hope this model will help feed more people.

Matt Lesle with Regina Education and Action on Community Hunger, a not-for-profit organization in the Queen City believes the community hub will significantly improve the quality of life for residents, especially children.

“Having it located downtown will reach more people and really the choice that people are going to have and really able to take more control over what they have in their diet and what they are able to choose is going to be a big benefit to people,” Lesle said.

Bailey is optimistic that the public will be able to access the Food Hub by late July or early August.