West End food pantry gives needy ‘little extra help’

Every day or two, a bookshelf along St. Matthews Avenue is restocked with food and toiletries. By the next day, much is gone.

The small food pantry, which Erin Leslie set up in September, was inspired by another one two kilometres away — a set of shelves beneath a community notice board in Denson/Riddle Park, installed over the summer by the South Valour Residents Association.

That pantry didn’t last. It was shut down after someone smeared dog feces on it in August, following weeks of backlash by some neighbours who feared it would encourage people from nearby encampments to stay.

Leslie said she didn’t know the South Valour pantry was vandalized when she started hers, which by contrast, has received a positive reception.

“There is a lot of need in our neighbourhood and it’s a little bit of a resource desert,” she said, noting the West End, toward Polo Park, has few places for people to turn when money runs short.

Little pantries like hers “definitely don’t replace larger, more reliable food banks,” she wrote when she announced it on Facebook, but said they can help neighbours bridge the gap between paydays or food bank pickups.

Leslie said she relied on others when money was tight and now has “a little bit of wiggle room” to buy extra groceries and give back.

Two months into the project, people continue to donate and benefit from it daily.

“Just yesterday I went to check on it and found it totally full with soup and beans and produce,” she said Monday.

Some parents have messaged her, asking her if there is any food in the pantry because they are looking for something for their children to eat.

A day after the pantry was announced in September, Leslie took to Facebook to address complaints it was being cleared out by a few people.

“If it’s going to folks who need food, it’s doing its job,” she wrote. “It’s here for anyone who could use a little extra help.”

While Leslie set up the pantry on her own initiative, the South Valour one grew out of a community survey in which about 45 per cent of 174 respondents named food security as something they wanted the association to focus on.

Julie Chamberlain, a University of Winnipeg researcher, worked with the association to analyze the survey and study how a small volunteer group could make a neighbourhood feel safer.

Kyle Wiebe, co-chair of the South Valour Residents Association, told the Free Press last month that residents yelled at him at a public meeting about the initiative, concerned encampment residents along Omand’s Creek would stay.

“There’s no reason to think that a few canned goods are either going to transform the housing problem that makes people live in tents … or that it’s going to make the problem worse,” said Chamberlain.

Instead, she said, the pantry shone a light on the conflict over a public space that was already happening. Public spaces are where society’s unmet needs become visible, she said.

Chamberlain said residents’ fears deserve to be taken seriously, but people should also ask where those fears come from.

Her research with the association found people feel safest in neighbourhoods that seem cared for, where residents recognize one another and are kind.

On St. Matthews, that has played out around the pantry. Neighbours tell Leslie they change their walking routes to check on the pantry or drop off groceries. One grandparent who lives elsewhere brings extra groceries so their grandchildren can stock the cupboard with them.

“It creates a talking point between neighbours that we wouldn’t have otherwise had,” she said.

Chamberlain said a backlash like at South Valour shouldn’t stop people from trying. In fact, even though the association is officially done with the pantry, items continue to be dropped off by others, Wiebe said.

“If we stopped making an effort to be kind and caring and inclusive every time that there was a backlash, we wouldn’t do anything,” said Chamberlain.

Winter will test the pantry — anything that could freeze, including canned goods, will have to come out.

For now, Leslie said, keeping it running takes a few minutes a couple of times a week, and it gives her something to do when the news feels overwhelming.

“It’s something tiny and concrete I can do to make a tiny but tangible difference,” she said.

kelly.riess@winnipegfreepress.com