Centraide and The Depot Community Food Centre have been working together since 1986, when the NDG Community Council created The Depot. In 2003, The Depot became an independent non-profit agency with its own Board of Directors, marking the beginning of a new chapter financially supported by Centraide.
2015 is another turning point for The Depot, which merges with two already well-established agencies: Ateliers Boîte à Lunch and Action Communiterre, a pioneer of collective gardening in Montreal and even Quebec. The result was a community food centre bringing together food assistance, urban agriculture, cooking and education programs. Today, The Depot offers some twenty programs to ensure food security for individuals and families in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district, most of whom live below the low-income threshold.
“One of the great pleasures of working in a front-line agency is the people you meet and seeing the impact of the work you do, because you build relationships, you build community.”
More than three decades after its creation, the agency remains as indispensable, if not more so, than ever before. Demand for all its services is soaring, particularly with the rising cost of the grocery basket. In two years, the number of food baskets handed out has doubled to almost 20,000. The Resto Depot served 43,000 meals last year, an increase of 35% over the previous year.
The agency, which has been innovating since its inception, is constantly looking for new approaches and solutions.
Tasha Lackman, the agency’s General Manager, tells us all about it in this video.
Watch the video
1 out of 5 people receives our help.
5 out of 5 people benefit from it.
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Supporting a network of over 375 community agencies also means promoting an inclusive, poverty-free society.