Food-it-Forward collects food waste from local business to distribute to community members in need.
The small organization, however, has had to relocate its operations near Okanagan College after some aggressive behaviour was displayed towards volunteers.
Carrie Bunney, founder of Food-it-Forward Okanagan, says there are incidents of violence and aggression on a daily basis.
“We have not just the homeless population that is a part of the aggression that we encounter, that is not who we are working to feed. Our demographics are working poor, the single parents, it is the families that are struggling, it’s the seniors that only get one meal a day.”
With her passion for the project, Bunney says she won’t let it get her down.
“It was a trial set up in the area [of Okanagan College] to see how high that need was, and we found within a very short period of time that we were servicing thousands of people because it was accessible by bus… It was located in an area where there was a lot of people who needed the access to our food.”
Rather than getting rid of the stop near the college, Bunney says they’ll be moving operations to another area near the college.
“It puts a fire under me to find a different location.”
Exact locations aren’t kept public for safety reasons, but can be found through regular updates on the Facebook page.
Get in touch with Bunney to volunteer or find exact pick-up locations by emailing fooditforwardokanagan@gmail.com.
READ MORE: kɬusx̌nitkʷ: The original and accurate name for ‘Okanagan Lake’
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