Vancouver Coastal Health
Community Food Security Initiative
North Shore Project Funding for Building Community Capacity in Food Security
April 2013 – March 2014
The purpose of this initiative is to increase food security for all members of the North Shore community while specifically working to improve access to healthy foods for people with low income. Vancouver Coastal Health is offering small grants that build community capacity to improve and sustain food security on the North Shore.
What is food security?
Community Food Security is when all residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes self-reliance.
A food system includes all the processes and infrastructure involved in feeding a population: growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, and disposal of food and food-related items
What is community capacity?
Building community capacity refers to forming partnerships, interest or working groups to acquire sustainable food skills, resources and commitment to activities that improve and sustain food security
Activities to build and improve food security include:
- growing food and related activities (community and backyard food gardens, edible landscaping, food producing rooftops and balconies, farmer’s markets, food composting and the background work and policies that allow these activities);
- food preparation and related activities (community kitchens, food skills initiatives, canning and preserving kitchens);
- food recovery and related activities (initiatives that recycle food waste, surplus food into useable food for feeding programs, other initiatives requiring food)