{"id":26172,"date":"2020-03-12T19:51:49","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T23:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26172"},"modified":"2020-03-12T19:52:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T23:52:00","slug":"minimum-wage-is-not-enough-food-insecurity-often-hits-working-residents-says-new-leader-of-york-region-food-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/minimum-wage-is-not-enough-food-insecurity-often-hits-working-residents-says-new-leader-of-york-region-food-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Minimum wage is not enough, food insecurity often hits working residents, says new leader of York Region Food Network"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a child growing up in Aurora, Kate Greavette remembers\nher parents bringing in veggies from their backyard garden. At the time, she\ndidn\u2019t think too much of their efforts and sometimes found herself asking, \u201cWhy\ncan\u2019t we just go to a grocery store?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as Executive Director of the Aurora-based York Region\nFood Network, she is answering that question herself on a daily basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Greavette recently took the helm of the York Region\nFood Network (YRFN) upon the retirement of long-time head Joan Stonehocker\nearlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She comes to the table after studying International\nDevelopment and Globalization at the University of Ottawa, an academic path\nwhich took her all around the world, exposing her to the role food plays all\naround the world, from acting as medicine to fostering healthy communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just love everything about food,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel\nlike food is the perfect medium for bringing people together, people of all\nages, all backgrounds, all languages \u2013 everyone has a connection to food. Even\nif we have a room full of people who don\u2019t speak the same language, food\nconnects them in a way. To me, that is such a powerful tool for community\ndevelopment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a scene she has witnessed play out many times since\nshe first joined the YRFN in the Spring of 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduating from the University of Ottawa, Ms.\nGreavette says she didn\u2019t yet know what she wanted to do with her life and\ncareer. She always had an interest in agriculture and health, but didn\u2019t know\nwhat that meant for her. After a year spent travelling, she took a\npost-graduate course at Ryerson University in food security where she undertook\nprojects on urban agriculture in the United Kingdom and South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon her return to Aurora to visit family, she first\nstumbled upon the work of the YRFN and a perfect fit was found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt has just been a beautiful journey,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She began work with the YRFN focused on the development\nof the York Region Food Charter, work which allowed her to develop an expertise\nin food policy, not just within York Region but across the country. She was\ngiven autonomy to find her feet, spearhead the projects she felt were\nimportant, and look for ways to address local food security challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs an organization, we have changed quite a lot over the\nyears,\u201d she says. \u201cWe started as an organization to coordinate food bank\nefforts throughout the Region and over that time we started to look at more\nsustainable solutions to food insecurity and food insecurity as a systemic\nissue, knowing that people need immediate access to food, but we need to change\nthe systems we operate in order to have lasting sustainable change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Executive Director of the York Region Food Network,\nMs. Greavette says one of her primary focuses will be continued work to address\ninequities within the system. Food insecurity, she says, is a result of\n\u201cinadequate incomes\u201d and most people experiencing food insecurity are those who\nare holding down a job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMinimum wage is not enough,\u201d she says, adding Ontario\nWorks and ODSP are also missing the mark. \u201cOn the one side, it is education,\nmaking sure we\u2019re talking to companies, making sure we talk to our partners,\nmaking sure we talk to our governments and letting them know employment\npractices need to change. People need adequate incomes and less precarious\nemployment. From an advocacy perspective, it is about having those\nconversations, letting people know the realities of food insecurity and letting\npeople know that food insecurity is a growing issue in this Region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a programming perspective, the York Region Food\nNetwork is putting an increased emphasis on regenerative agriculture and\nenvironmental sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this end, the YRFN is in the early stages of\ndeveloping a compost education centre which would be a demonstration project\nfor people to come and learn not only how to compost their waste but make a\npositive impact on the environment. Such a space, she says, will also provide\nopportunities for participants to explore Indigenous growing techniques, how\ndifferent cultures understand food, and have meaningful discussions on how food\nimpacts changing climates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of people think of food insecurity and they think,\n\u2018This person doesn\u2019t have food because they are lazy and not working, it\u2019s\ntheir own fault, they\u2019re not managing their budgets well,\u2019 but, for us, we\u2019re\nlucky to have the research to say, \u2018No, the people who are food insecure are\npeople who are working.\u2019 It tends to be the unattached, the people who are the\nbest budgeters and are cooking food at home, for the most part. To be able to\nbetter communicate that to the public is huge so people understand what the\nissue is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe often get people thinking that we at the YRFN are a\nfood bank and we often get people who think we\u2019re part of the Regional\nMunicipality of York. We are a charity and our focus is on connecting and\nbuilding food skills in the community. Food insecurity will be solved by\nincreasing people\u2019s incomes, but we also know that a lot of people who are\nexperiencing food insecurity, who are constantly worrying about food, who\naren\u2019t able to purchase food regularly, who run out of food and aren\u2019t able to\npurchase more, we do know that they often forego social events because of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe often hear people won\u2019t go out for coffee or they\nwon\u2019t go out for dinners with friends because they are constantly worried about\nmoney, food and food access. We know that a lot of people who are struggling\nwith food are socially isolated. The purpose of our programs is really to\nconnect people, to reduce that social isolation, build that social inclusion,\nbuild those friendships, and we want to build resiliency within that so if\npeople have those community connections, they are more resilient and they have\nmore people to turn to in times of crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on the York Region Food Network, visit yrfn.ca. or call 905-841-3101.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a child growing up in Aurora, Kate Greavette remembers her parents bringing in veggies from their backyard garden. At the time, she didn\u2019t think too much of their efforts and sometimes found herself asking, \u201cWhy can\u2019t we just go to a grocery store?\u201d Now, as Executive Director of the Aurora-based York Region Food Network, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/2020-03-12-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6O8","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 14:35:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}