Community Impact Report 2020/2021

The People’s Pantry Food Recovery Society

The People’s Pantry Food Recovery Society works to recover food from grocery stores, veggie markets, and bakeries to distribute in hampers to single moms, seniors and other vulnerable populations in the Tri-Cities. During COVID-19, we partnered up with them to get our bags of food into the hands of kids they serve.

“Backpack Buddies is such a bonus for us. Because the food we are able to recover from stores is so unpredictable, we never know if we will have kid-friendly options to put in our family hampers. Backpack Buddies makes sure we have staples for the kids—a standard set of food that they will eat and enjoy. We’ve always believed in the power of community, but to see how organizations have banded together through COVID-19 to bolster each other’s efforts and to be more efficient is nothing short of inspiring.”

— Pam Eberl, Executive Director

Westcoast Family Centres’s Local Love Food Hub

The Local Love Food Hub was an emergency response initiative launched by the United Way of the Lower Mainland in April 2020 to address the urgent need for food during the COVID-19 pandemic. Westcoast Family Centres ran one of the 135 Local Love Food Hubs that were strategically placed across Metro Vancouver. Every week, dedicated volunteers delivered groceries, food hampers, prepared meals, frozen meals and other essential goods at no cost to people in the community who were facing food insecurity. During COVID-19, we augmented their gamily hampers to include kid-approved meals and snacks.

“Backpack Buddies provided a very welcome security for families that receive our hampers—knowing that there would always be kid-approved food included. When parents would come to pick up their hampers, the kids would get to grab their bags from Backpack Buddies—it helped them to feel a part of the solution for their family. Our collaboration with Backpack Buddies was a key part of supporting the whole family.”

— Nicole, Coordinator

Award-winning chef, Trevor Bird, is no stranger to pressure. The two-time finalist on Top Chef Canada and Top Chef Canada All-Stars has had to think on his feet but, like so many of us, was stopped dead in his tracks by the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. 

“My team at Fable Kitchen was pivoting every two weeks,” he remembers. “We did take-out food and all sorts of other things — it was so stressful. But the universe always gives you what you need.”

For Trevor, that turned out to be a rekindled relationship with Emily-anne and Joanne from Backpack Buddies.

“They hosted a Mother’s Day online cooking class last year. When it was over, they approached me and suggested that this could be turned into a really cool fundraiser for Backpack Buddies.”

Ultimately, the partnership between Backpack Buddies and Trevor’s team at Fable Kitchen turned into so much more than that.

“The Backpack Buddies team helped us turn a Zoom class for six people into a highly efficient program that could be rolled out to small and large groups of friends, families and colleagues. The model we created together kept Fable alive for the pandemic.”

Trevor and his team have over 180 virtual cooking classes under their belts and are showing no signs of slowing down.

“We’ve helped to raise close to $40,000 with Backpack Buddies and it’s such a beautiful collaboration,” he says. “Now, $5 from every ticket I sell goes to Backpack Buddies. This partnership has changed the way I view business and life and the way I want to move forward in this world.”