COVID-19 Update: Birch Narrows and Turnor Lake come together to tackle food insecurity

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on Canadian Feed The Children’s partner communities in Canada and around the world. For families in Turnor Lake and Birch Narrows Dene Nation in northern Saskatchewan, the crisis has been challenging, but the community is finding ways to move forward.

We spoke with our partners Rebecca Sylvestre and Hélène Hebert of the Turnor Lake Birch Narrows Community Food Centre, which usually leads community cooking and nutrition programs, as well as land-based education workshops. Since the lockdown began in March, they have shifted their programming to address the most urgent needs in the community.

We asked Rebecca and Hélène about how the community is managing in face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s what they had to say.

PRIOR TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES YOUR COMMUNITY FACED?

It costs $300 and a three hour drive to get to the nearest large shopping centre, but how can someone afford that when they are living on $250 every two weeks?

There had to be something else we could do. We did research on how to start a community food centre, and applied for support from CFTC. We were able to do cooking workshops right away with the local school, reaching close to 100% of the children in Turnor Lake.

AS OF EARLY APRIL, HOW HAS THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACTED YOUR COMMUNITY? WHAT IS THE MOST URGENT NEED?

Currently we do not have any positive cases, but we are on lockdown. The road was blocked with one day’s notice, which caused chaos. Everyone is talking about food – with only one local small store, how is it going to feed all of us?  There are long line ups to get to the local store – you can wait for up to two and a half hours to get fruits and vegetables, but then you get none in the end.

Our most urgent need is having enough fresh and nutritious food for the community. The supply chain has been significantly disrupted. We only have one grocery store in Turnor Lake that is figuring out a new way to restock to meet people’s needs. Our community doesn’t have a second store that you can go to. There are also a number of low-income families who don’t have the option to stock up on groceries. Nearly 40 babies are at risk of running out of formula, which is now not available through the warehouses we can access. Sometimes the roads are closed, so there is limited access for trucks to come in. If our community doesn’t receive a grocery shipment, we have to wait at least a week for another.

HOW HAVE YOU RESPONDED TO THIS CRISIS?

Turnor Lake and Birch Narrows Community Food Centre cancelled all community meals and cooking workshops to maintain physical distancing, but prior to this we had received shipments of food for an event. We distributed this as food boxes to members of the community at home. To keep our sense of connection, we now hold online cooking workshops to teach people what they can do with the food that’s distributed to them.

We even did a Facebook Live session on our Facebook page to teach community members how they can make bread with ingredients they probably already have at home. That spread well beyond Turnor Lake and Birch Narrows!

We’ve been able to send hunters, trappers and fishermen out into the land to hunt caribou, trap rabbits and fish to then be distributed to the community. Our hunters were able to bring back four caribou, which provided quite a bit of meat that was packaged and given to Elders and families. In addition, CFTC helped us gather produce ahead of time to pack and prepare around 175 food boxes to be distributed to families in need. We also were able to purchase formula for the babies most in need for the upcoming weeks. Our long-term goal is to create a greenhouse so our community can grow their own fresh fruits and vegetables. A child who knows how to plant a garden is a child that will not go hungry.

We had a youth in the community who went out into the bush to go trapping with his family for the first time because of receiving land-based education. Just to see the pride in his eyes, you know he feels valuable to this community. It’s pretty amazing to see that even in a crisis, we are seeing the fruits of our efforts.