Food, Friendship, and Nature (Impact Story 2024 - 2025)

Healthy meals, meaningful connections and the physical environment are vital to our well-being. This fiscal year, nutritious food, nature-focused group activities and at-home services underpinned our programming for older adults and seniors.

Food, Friendship, and Nature

Food is a fabulous way to bring people together. We connected with 626 seniors when distributing 1,012 hampers in collaboration with community partners. Each hamper included fresh items—strawberries, cherry tomatoes and more. Seniors enjoyed the produce, sharing that it is often beyond financial reach. With your support, we remain committed to addressing food security issues in our community.

Through gardening, artmaking outdoors and walks led by Indigenous knowledge keepers, older adults came together to learn, create and grow. Drop by our parklet anytime to see the native plants that community members have nurtured! Enthusiasm for nature-based programs underscores the value of fostering relationships not only with one another, but also with the land that sustains us.

Aging in place benefits our physical, mental and emotional well-being. Thanks to our funders, we supported seniors with at-home services as we expanded our light housekeeping, frozen meal delivery and friendly visiting programs. Importantly, these programs create opportunities for connection between seniors and our dedicated team of staff and volunteers.

For many older adults, our neighbourhood house is a second home. Whether gathering for a shared meal, hands-on building project or creative expression through song and dance, older adults enliven our space. We celebrate all their contributions to building a healthier, vibrant community.

I have nothing but good things to say about this [frozen meal delivery] program. Three meals a week may not sound like much but consider that’s roughly 12 meals each month. With today's food costs, it’s quite significant. -- senior participant