Coping with the Rising Cost of Living in Neepawa & District Area -Episode 1

The rising cost of living is a very huge concern in our country today and is mostly felt by the most vulnerable sectors in our society including seniors and minority groups. Due to this affordability crisis, community organizations are doing their best to respond to the needs of their community members and individuals and families are doing their best to cope with the rising cost of living.

On our first episode of this program, we were able to put together interviews with different stakeholders in the community to discuss about existing policies that affects this affordability crisis and the community and household level interventions which are being done to cope with the rising cost of living. In one of our interviews with Dan Mazier, MP for Dauphin, Swan River, Neepawa, he was asked about this issue and he mentioned as to how policies and decisions made by those in positions of power impacts communities including rural areas.

Amanda Naugton-Gale, Community Ministries Director of the Neepawa Salvation Army which runs the Food bank in the area shared that the organization is growing and their main source of income is the Thrift Store and the Kettle Campaign for the Christmas Hamper. “We’ve gone from just two employees to now we have almost nine- two full-time and the rest are part-time and we also have a person who is Leah Anderson who is our Community and Family Service worker just because that need in our Family Services side has really grown in the last couple of years.”

We also had an opportunity to interview Leah Anderson to talk about her role as the Community and Family Services worker in the Neepawa Salvation Army which is to oversee the Food Bank and the volunteers and refer clients to other organizations when needed like mental health or domestic support. She mentioned that she started in February of 2022 due to the increasing numbers of those accessing the food bank and that prior to 2022, Amanda Naughton-Gale who is the Community and Ministries Director run and oversaw the operation of the Thrift Store and the Family and Services unit on her own for almost 10 years.

“By 2022 though, the need in our service area had increase to the point of needing to hire a Community and Family Services worker three days a week. So it came to the point where they needed to bring someone else in to just do the Food Bank so that’s when I came in to run and oversee the day to day operations of the Food Bank. In the last 6 months, we’ve seen that need increase yet again that I’ve actually extended to 4 days a week to continue to serve my clients.”, said Anderson.

Anderson shared how the Food Bank operates from donation drive to the distribution of the food items. Anderson mentioned that donations come from individuals and businesses and that anyone can donate goods from fresh produce, canned and other food items. They have this Food Rescue program where local grocery stores send them different kinds of food items from fresh to canned food items  instead of throwing them away. The Food bank has also established a system that instead of distributing packed items to their clients, they ask their clients to fill out a form where they select the food items they would like to get.

Lastly, we were also able to interview a food bank recipient who is a newcomer to know the factors that led her to access the food bank. She mentioned that the reason why she had to access the food bank was during the time when they are encountering financial difficulties especially when they needed to buy a second hand vehicle cause their other vehicle was broken. She said they were almost on a negative budget during that time and the help they receive from the food bank helped them survive during those difficult times. She shared how grateful she is for the help they are given and for the overwhelming support they receive.

The Food Bank has helped individuals cope up with the rising of cost of living but it is important to address the underlying factors and that we have a role as citizens to encourage our politicians to craft economic policies that will work for everyone.