(Image Credit: Kamloops Food Policy Council)

By James Maine, Kamloops Food Policy Council

SOUND OFF

SOUND OFF: Community building is the missing middle in the food affordability crisis

Dec 15, 2025 | 11:05 AM

AS THE YEAR DRAWS TO A CLOSE, the all-too-familiar headlines pop up like clockwork: “Expect to pay more for groceries in the coming year,” and “Growing demand pushing food banks to the breaking point”. While headlines may be accurate, they don’t always tell the whole story.

Let’s shine some light on the truth that there is more to our food system than grocery stores for people with adequate means and the food bank for when we are struggling. There is a middle, represented by the idea that healthy, nutritious food should be available to everyone. In the spirit of the season, feel good about being part of a community of people who value your health and well-being, and are working to establish and empower a resilient food system to help and support one another.

Everybody deserves to eat, and it is incredibly consequential to the health and well-being of society to have people needlessly going hungry or otherwise unable to access nutritional food. Food Banks BC Hunger Report 2025 states 1.3 million people in British Columbia are facing food insecurity. While causes and contributors are complex, it is simply unacceptable to have over 24 per cent of the population struggling to eat in an abundant, resource-rich country like the one we have here. Rather than continuing to wait for help to arrive from above, we must recognize the change needed comes from the ground up.

The Kamloops Food Policy Council has launched several programs over the years to address the missing middle with intention to establish a food commons that produces and provides healthy local food outside of the corporate industrial food system. Some programs have achieved more than others, but we are still falling short on one of the key objectives: to realize the possibility of common and community food in front of the normalization of food unaffordability and poverty.

(Image Credit: Kamloops Food Policy Council)

TWO & OUT

PETERS: Celebration from Iranian ex-pats speaks louder than our skepticism of Trump

7h ago

LOOPED IN

LOOPED IN WITH NIKKI OMEN: March 5, 2026

Mar 05, 2026

SOUND OFF

SOUND OFF: Supporting British Columbians through the Strategic Investment Fund

Mar 05, 2026

We have been trying to reach you. There is a world of food between the grocery store and the food bank. The catch? It requires your awareness, participation and the recognition that you bring value to the local food system, well beyond your ability to spend money on it.

On every street, there is someone who loves to garden, who loves to cook, who loves to teach — and who would be happy to bring meals to those who may not be able to get to where the meals are. We need you to find each other.

Neighbourhoods can produce and distribute a significant amount of food among each other, or even produce and share food with other neighbourhoods and community groups. This can look like common gardens, combining harvests, trading fish and game, preserving and redistributing the surplus among your neighbours, hosting meal prep events, block parties or potluck dinners. This model is how societies past have survived challenging times, and also built tight networks and connections, secured one another and just made it a lot harder for people to fall through the cracks.

(Image Credit: Kamloops Food Policy Council)

Interested in starting or joining a group in your community?

There is a good chance your neighbourhood already has an online group on Facebook or another social media platform. There are several programs and organizations in the community that can help with structuring and establishing a neighbourhood food security and sharing group.

Hi Neighbour, a United Way program to help facilitate neighbourhood connections, is a great place to start.

Mount Paul Community Food Centre is a valuable resource offering amazing garden programs, a seed library, food skills workshops and food access programs.

Kamloops Food Policy Council Community Meal Calendar maintains a schedule of free meals. Organizations on the meal calendar have access to update the information live as changes occur.

Gleaning Abundance Program brings people together to help harvest our local abundance of fruit and vegetables and share it with the greater community. You can volunteer to help harvest or register your tree, farm or garden.

Grow and Connect, a BC Interior-born platform dedicated to strengthening regional food networks across BC. Use the network platform to create community groups and share information. Local food organizations and businesses can use the platform to find delivery support or post available spare capacity for cargo.

All of these initiatives require funding to continue. Donations are very valuable towards our survival and ability to continue developing and delivering programs towards food security and a healthy regional food system. The Kamloops Food Bank is no exception and, as we all know, faces incredible demand on the front lines.

This holiday season, let’s take some of the pressure off each other and support one another. Get to know your neighbours and recognize the power in you and your community in effecting change.

Happy Holidays from the Kamloops Food Policy Council.

——

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.