{"id":26295,"date":"2020-04-03T17:17:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T21:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26295"},"modified":"2020-04-03T17:17:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T21:17:21","slug":"food-bank-implements-door-to-car-door-service-for-community-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/food-bank-implements-door-to-car-door-service-for-community-members\/","title":{"rendered":"Food bank implements door-to-car-door service for community members"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Aurora Food Pantry has instituted door-to-car-door\nservice in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is, for the most part, the local food bank\nis doing well in responding to community needs in this time of crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the outbreak began to transform our lives in March,\nthe Aurora Food Pantry, which is based on Industrial Parkway South, has been\nlooking at ways to meet community demand while, at the same time, maintaining\nthe health and wellbeing of its volunteers, the lifeblood of the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe started with the premise that we want to be able to\ncontinue serving our community. Period.\u201d says Allison Stuart, Board Chair of\nthe Aurora Food Pantry. \u201cFalling out of that was the need to protect our\nclients, our staff, and volunteers. Somehow we had to make those puzzle pieces\ncome together while also recognizing the set-up that we had and the limitations\nthat entailed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest question, she says, was whether or not the\nFood Pantry would be able to provide personalized service for its many\nunderprivileged clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before COVID-19 and social distancing became our new\nnormal for an indefinite period of time, clients would be able to go \u201cshopping\u201d\nin the food bank for what they needed, accompanied by a volunteer to help\nassist in this process. It soon became clear that that model would have to be\nsuspended in the interests of everyone\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, volunteers are the ones doing the shopping\nthroughout their vast warehouse, guided by parameters such as family makeup and\ndietary restrictions supplied by clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe started this process probably earlier than we needed\nto, but it was our best way of approaching it,\u201d says Ms. Stuart. \u201cThe clients\nare appreciative that we\u2019re open and we probably get ten calls a day asking if\nwe\u2019re still open. They are appreciative that we\u2019re looking out for their safety\nby letting them wait in their individual cars rather than coming in and\nsnuggling together in a rather small waiting area. It is more difficult for\nthose who come by either transit or walk to the Food Pantry and there is really\nnothing much we can do to accommodate that because if we let one client in, it\nis going to be too challenging to manage all the clients. Most of our clients\nhave arranged rides and so on, so that works out quite well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Stuart admits that while the new protocols have made\nfor a process that is slower than usual, there have been no complaints from\nclients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite their new delivery model, it is full steam ahead\nat the Aurora Food Pantry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While they are well stocked for today, tomorrow is always\na question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe started off with our shelves full and able to pretty\nwell give our clients what they needed,\u201d says Ms. Stuart. \u201cHowever, when we went\nto stock up on those things that we were running on, we couldn\u2019t get some of\nthose replaced at the grocery store, the same as everyone else \u2013 standard stuff\nlike toilet paper. Produce was very low, along with flour and those kinds of\nthings, but we\u2019ve got systems in place and we\u2019re doing quite well with meeting\nour commitments to our clients. That, in large part, is due to the incredible,\nover-the-top generosity of the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have had people phoning every day of the week asking\nwhere they could drop stuff off and we have been supported financially by the\ncommunity with donations and this is really important now \u2013 and it is also\nreally important for the future because what we anticipate over the next little\nwhile is, yes, we will be seeing our current clients more frequently than\nusual, but\u2026that people\u2019s personal ability to manage with challenging\ncircumstances, as they get more and more limited, we\u2019re anticipating there will\nbe an increase in activity at the Food Pantry and even more new registrations.\nWe\u2019re looking not only to today but also to make sure we\u2019re still able to serve\nthem as this continues and the hardship for people increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe community\u2019s generosity is fantastic and we can\nassure the community today and tomorrow that we can look after our clients. We\nappreciate their continued support so that into the future we can continue to\nsay that because we\u2019re anticipating it is going to get worse before it gets\nbetter. People\u2019s initial energy will diminish. It is kind of a balancing act: we\ndon\u2019t want to take more than our due in terms of people\u2019s generosity and yet we\nalso want to make sure that we\u2019re not having to modify what we can do for our\nclients too much because their needs continue whether we modify what we can do\nin response or not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on the Aurora Food Pantry, visit www.aurorafoodpantry.ca<\/a> or call 905-841-1577. Services are currently offered at select times on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The Aurora Food Pantry has instituted door-to-car-door service in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news is, for the most part, the local food bank is doing well in responding to community needs in this time of crisis. Since the outbreak began to transform our lives in March, the Aurora Food Pantry, which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Q7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 17:21:27","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\/26295","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=26295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}