By Bryan Eneas

P.A. locals raising awareness about food security

Dec 20, 2016 | 9:15 AM

Four Prince Albert women are spreading some holiday cheer while raising awareness about food security in the West Flat neighbourhood.

Shelley Essaunce, Trisha Budd, Amanda McAdam and Samantha Lachance came together to form the group It takes a community to raise a child. The four women have packaged 70 food hampers as a means to feed needy families at Christmas, to illustrate the absence of quality food in the West Flat, and as Essaunce put it, to be good neighbours.

“I moved here from Ontario. I had no idea where I was moving or what I was moving into,” she said. “I realized there was way more than poverty at play in my neighbourhood. I found it really disturbing, and it bothered me.”

In 2012, Essaunce and her husband started serving homemade food for West Flat children from their porch.

Hoping to build off of her experiences, her and her group are distributing Christmas hampers with the help of Prince Albert businesses and private citizens, even from as far as Ontario. Items in the hampers include pancake mix, oatmeal, eggs and bacon.

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“[Business involvement] is so exciting,” Budd said. “Everybody is coming together and supporting what we’re doing. Every little donation we get, it’s just another excitement for us.”

The group has also reached out to Tim Horton’s, where McAdam used to work. She knows from experience, when food hits an expiry time it’s thrown out. She hoped to convince management to work with a local group such as the Food Bank to distribute those baked goods. 

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas