Pastor Phil Johnson says the move of the Osoyoos Food Bank to Osoyoos Baptist Church will provide more dignified service as clients will no longer need to stand outside in line in bad weather. (Richard McGuire file photo)
The Osoyoos Food Bank is moving to the Osoyoos Baptist Church and the move will provide more dignified and helpful service to clients, says Pastor Phil Johnson.
The food bank has been run by the church from the Cactus Centre next to the Osoyoos Splash Park, but Johnson said clients often had to wait outside in bad weather because the old facility didn’t have enough room for them inside.
“I’ve always found it irritating,” he said. “When it’s cold to wait outside, when it’s hot, when it’s raining. This way we have enough space that they can just come right in and sit down and have a coffee.”
Johnson said that when the morning rush came as food hampers were distributed at the Cactus Centre, sometimes clients had to wait outside for 45 minutes to an hour.
Clients will now take a number and can then have coffee and a snack as they wait, he said.
They will also be able to meet with representatives of Workzone and Interior Health at the church rather than simply being referred to them, said Johnson.
Although the move is being carried out in stages, Johnson said the next food bank day, Sept. 15, will be at the church.
One of the biggest challenges has been to rearrange storage space at the church to accommodate the food bank, said Johnson.
This has meant that some existing users of the storage space have had to move out.
“We’re just having to reshuffle all of our storage and everything needs to be fine tuned a little more,” he said.
The church hopes to continue using one of the rooms at the Cactus Centre for storage in the short term until the move can be completed, Johnson said.
The food bank was originally started by an Osoyoos couple who ran it from their garage with a group of volunteers, but Johnson’s predecessor at the Baptist Church took it over and moved it to the Cactus Centre.
The church took it on as a ministry, allowing it to issue tax receipts, he said.
“It’s been at the Cactus Centre for as long as I’ve been involved, which is 14 years,” he said.
The food bank usually serves between 35 and 75 families, but the number fluctuates depending on the state of the economy and the time of year.
Although donations slow down in the summer months, Johnson said financial donations at other times such as Christmas help to carry the food bank through the slower periods.
They were surprised by how many clients came to the food bank in mid-August, he said.
“Our community has been generous and usually the Christmas generosity is enough to carry us through some of that slower time,” he said. “I’ve just always marveled at how God gives us what we need.”
While some organizations put out emotional appeals for donations, Johnson said he won’t do that unless necessary.
“I’m not going to tell you that we’re broke if we’re not broke,” he said. “We have money in the bank and we will be able to continue to purchase supplies for the next little bit. We want to be honest in our reporting to our community in the sense that if we say we’re broke, we’re broke.”
Johnson said that one idea he’d like to see come about is to provide cooking classes at the church showing people how to make interesting meals from some of the items in their hamper.
He added that many clients only want food with minimal preparation required.
In the past, the food bank has offered a dried bean soup mix that could be combined with tinned tomatoes to make a hearty bean soup, but few clients took it.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
