Across the country, food bank usage is at alarming levels as Canadians are increasingly struggling with food insecurity. It’s a crisis that falls on the shoulders of local charities, which are burdened with mounting pressure, especially given that the rising cost of everything from food to fuel and rent leaves fewer people able to donate food or money to help those in need.
That’s where hockey comes in. Ottawa Chefs Stephen La Salle of Lionhearts Inc., Peter Gareau of Shepherds of Good Hope, and Chef Gouhar Yaqoob from TD Place have been ensuring that surplus food from the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships is benefiting the city’s vulnerable and less fortunate.
Surplus food from hotels and venues is being redistributed daily to Ottawa shelters and organizations, including La Tablée des Chefs. The initiative emphasizes social and environmental sustainability by recovering the “extra” professionally prepared meals and delivering them promptly to those in need.
This “redirected food” is feeding Ottawa’s most vulnerable. The Shepherds of Good Hope canteen building, across from the Murray Street shelter, sees large lines of people waiting for a warm meal. Ottawa Life dropped in to speak with Chef Gareau and see firsthand how the program is having a positive impact.
Standing behind a mountain of pizza boxes, the high-tech equipment and flashy uniforms for the hockey players must seem like an entirely different world to Chef Gareau. The scale of excess food generated by the World Juniors is staggering.
The pizza is all courtesy of Gabriels and is from the arenas, but local hotels have also stepped up to donate extra food generated by the World Juniors hockey tournament, including the Delta Hotel. They began dropping off excess meals since the preliminary portion of the tournament began last month.
Feeding one person at Shepherds of Good Hope costs approximately $9.50 per day. Much of their food supply comes from the Ottawa Food Bank system, which provides about 6,000 pounds of food weekly. However, as food banks struggle with skyrocketing demand, the shelter is seeing an increase in people seeking assistance directly from their facilities. “It all gets downloaded on us,” Chef Gareau explained.
With all the 300 shelter beds in use at the facility, three meals a day adds up to 900 meals. Despite being at full capacity, the kitchen, which was intended to serve the needs of shelter guests, is currently feeding many more people than just those who bunk down in the facility overnight.
“If somebody comes through that door, I’m going to find a way to feed them; we’re not in the business of turning people away,” explains Chef Gareau, who, despite the challenges, is committed to feeding anyone and everyone in need.
According to Bernard Forestell, communications manager at Shepherds of Good Hope, housing is the only way to improve the situation. He says that the affordability crisis in Ottawa is driving food insecurity and noted that the long-term solutions to hunger must go hand in hand with affordable housing.
Forestell says the Shepherds serves a wide-ranging clientele that includes employed people who are hungry and people with jobs who are homeless, which he says is the result of “the cost of living (that) has risen so exponentially. ” According to an August 2024 report from Statistics Canada, in all but the highest income bracket, three in five renters (58 percent to 61 percent ) and almost one-third of homeowners (31 percent to 38 percent ) are very concerned over housing affordability. Forestell reiterates that any long-term solution to the hunger epidemic in Ottawa must begin with having places for people to call their own at an affordable price.
The need is evident as you walk down Murray Street. On the side of the kitchen building, there are easily half a dozen tents and temporary structures lining the sidewalk filled with people taking shelter from the cold Ottawa winter and waiting for the doors to open to get a warm meal. On the morning I visited, at least 50 people were also in the courtyard, also waiting to eat.
By getting warm food delivered on the same day from sporting events, hundreds of people are able to eat, a necessity they otherwise could not afford. The food donations help relieve the pressure on frontline workers like Chef Gareau. The mountain of pizza will be lunch for hundreds, ensuring that, at least on this day, Chef Gareau can breathe a sigh of relief knowing for certain that the Shepherds can feed everyone in need.
Although the World Juniors will be wrapping up their stay in the capital shortly, Gareau hopes to see the program continue well into the new year with surplus food in our community not going to waste but instead making a difference where it is needed the most.
