Surrey – SurreyCares Community Foundation SurreyCares Community Foundation has supplied a $20,070.00 Emergency Community Support Fund grant to City Dream Centre to support their bi-weekly food hamper program. This program originally began in April of 2020 and continued until August, providing 900 to 1,000 food hampers to individuals, families, seniors and others experiencing low income compounded by COVID-19. As the need for their food hampers has increased, this funding will cover the costs of food, rentals, disinfecting supplies, masks, gloves and printing for the months to come.
Kelly Voros, City Dream Centre’s Executive Administrator, explained that “this project fills a unique gap in that it offers connection to the recipients, as well as food. Over the summer our deliveries were mainly to low-income housing complexes near inner-city schools, where the Surrey School Board had identified a need.
City Dream Centre’s volunteers are eager to get back to the families and individuals that they have built relationships with during the first phase of their food hampers program as they love seeing how those families are also helping each other. During the first phase of City Dream Centre’s hamper project, they were able to streamline their process. Beginning with a round of check-ins with their contacts from the Surrey School Board, admin leads at women’s shelters, seniors on their list and much more, their volunteers get right to work sending the hampers. Of their 385 volunteers, the shifts are scheduled with 50 people at a time to get hampers ready. Teams of drivers with rental trucks and others with their personal vehicles are then assigned hamper delivery.
This grant is made possible through the Government of Canada’s $350 million Emergency Community Support Fund, which saw over $900,000 allocated to SurreyCares in its first round and now, over $575,000 in the second round.