$400K grant enables Spruce Grove community pantry to expand program

The Spruce Grove Rotary community pantry has found a permanent home in Stony Plain after moving four times in the last six years.

Spruce Grove’s community pantry is expanding operations, now equipped with a state-of-the art kitchen.

Unveiled Tuesday, the kitchen will enable the pantry to bump up the number of weekly school lunches from 900 to 5,000 over the next two years.

It will also allow the pantry to expand on the kind of lunches it provides, which so far have been simple out of necessity, said manager Dianne Brown.

“This is a dream come true for me, but this is a dream come true for this community and the hundreds of volunteers that it takes to pull this off every week,” Brown told CTV News Edmonton.

“(We) will have no hungry children in our school system. (This is) a great opportunity for every child to reach their educational potential.”

Brown and a friend, both members of the rotary club that hosts the pantry, started the program in 2019 after seeing food insecurity among youth in their own community.

Since then, the entirely volunteer-run pantry has moved four times.

Those behind it have been working for five years to establish a more permanent space, finally able to do so with $400,000 from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Local Food Infrastructure Fund.

In the future, Brown said the pantry wants to work with local schools to provide classes and work experience.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Klippenstein