Barrie South Simcoe Metis Council offers foodbank to citizens in need

The Barrie South Simcoe Metis Council, located at 1401 64 Cedar Point Drive, is nestled away in the corners of Cedar Point. They are a small but mighty council with many initiatives to help their citizens. One of the programs is their foodbank that runs twice a month, usually on the last two Sundays of the month. This program allows the council to help combat food insecurity that their citizens are going through in the Barrie South Simcoe area.

Tony Muskat, the chair of the council can be found handing out bread to citizens who visit the foodbank. The bread is donated to the foodbank by local business Cobs Bread. With inflation and the cost of food going up, citizens are in a much higher need for food. Right now the Foodbank is only able to service twenty to forty of their 1000 citizens. The Metis council relies on funding provided by the MNO along with donations from Cobs Bread.

Last year, the council also partnered with a local Little Cesars, a pizza place, who had put together a Metis Council special. When patrons of the pizza joint said they would like to order the "Metis special", a portion of the sale of that pizza went directly to funds for the Metis Council's foodbank.

During the holidays, the council was able to provide $50 Walmart gift cards to citizens in need along with groceries from the foodbank to help start the year off in a good way.

The Barrie Council’s foodbank is open to any MNO citizen that is part of the Barrie South Simcoe Council.

To sign up for the foodbank, citizens are usually notified by BSSMC by email or by postings in the BSSMC FB group. The council sends out a sign up sheet for citizens to fill out. The sign up is on a first come first served basis. Once the citizens fill out the Google Form, they will be put on a list and sent out a half hour time slot to come and pick out the food items they need.

The Barrie Council welcomes collaborations with local businesses and grocery stores. If you’re a business owner in Barrie, you can contact the Barrie South Simcoe Metis Council chair, Tony Muscat, at tonymuscat@rogers.ca to see how you can give back to the community.