Making school lunches probably wasn’t on Jeromy Farkas’ list of expected tasks when he was campaigning for mayor, but here we are.
With gloved hands and hairnets, Calgary city officials participated in a morning volunteer shift with Bagging for Calgary’s Kids (BB4CK), an organization that makes and delivers nearly 8,000 school lunches every day. Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said he bagged hundreds of carrot sticks and assembled nearly as many turkey sandwiches.
“With any luck, we’ll have thousands of meals going out to Calgarians across the city,” he said.
Farkas was joined by city councillors John Pantazopoulos and Mike Jamieson, along with representatives from the Baytex group, who all presented BB4CK with an official proclamation recognizing May 25 as Brown Bagging It Day in Calgary.
“This is in recognition of the work that’s being done by this great local organization. It’s serving an incredible need across the entire city and it draws more attention to the challenges of food insecurity,” Farkas said.
“In Calgarian households, four-in-ten of us are impacted by food insecurity and it’s important for us to continue to support these organizations, addressing those needs, as well as stepping up to fix some of the root causes.”
Over the past decade-or-so, Farkas has volunteered in the BB4CK kitchen at least a dozen times, he said.
The elected officials’ visit and proclamation was part of BB4CK’s month-long Brown Bagging It campaign to raise awareness about food insecurity and its impact on children and families in Calgary, according to a BB4CK release.
Bethany Ross, Executive Director of BB4CK, said that having city officials recognizing their cause is very important.
“Those folks are so busy and we appreciate them finding the time to make something like this happen. It’s really an important way of raising our profile and making sure that we can have the conversation as a city about how we care for each other,” she told LWC.
Though they may not be as high-profile as the mayor, every volunteer who walks through the BB4CK kitchen has a vital role to play, according to Ross.
“We are 100 per cent driven by community, so every lunch is made and delivered by someone who’s volunteering their time,” she said.
“We have an incredible volunteer community and there’s about 600 folks every week who come together to make sure that kids have access to the food they need.”
Food insecurity is likely to get worse before it gets better
Ross said that BB4CK would love to make fewer lunches everyday because their demand decreased. Sadly though, that reality isn’t likely.
“Things have gotten harder in almost every way when it comes to a family’s budget,” she said.
“Pretty much every expense has gone up and we know that those numbers around food inflation continue to increase. This is a problem that’s going to take a whole bunch of people, every level of government and community to make a dent in, and we need to see folks coming forward and willing to make progress in those areas in order to move the needle.”
After their shift in the kitchen, Ross and the city representatives engaged in a table talk. During their chat, Farkas asked Ross how he could use his platform to help BB4CK.
“The first thing for us really is awareness. It’s awareness of how many kids in our city need food,” Ross replied.
“It’s also awareness that if buying food is hard for you right now, there are resources and communities that can help.”
On his way out of the BB4CK kitchen, Farkas said that he was peckish and ready for lunch after making countless sandwiches.
