Community Connections

Creating Community Connections Through Food

Catherine is a person who recognizes the role food can play in fostering community connection and engagement. Catherine recognized a need to ensure all newcomer families benefited from food programs being offered through the Buckmaster’s Circle Community Centre. She partnered with the community centre staff and Food First NL to provide grocery bags filled with culturally appropriate food to ten, very appreciative new Canadian families. Much of this food was sourced from local businesses that stock items not readily available in most large chain grocery stores. The bags also contained information about the centre’s programs in English and Arabic.

As a single parent with three kids and someone with livedexperience of food insecurity, Catherine believes food can act as a form of cultural exchange that can break down barriers and help people develop new social connections. She also believes that having a greater range of food in the city that reflects the increased cultural diversity of the population will make residents feel welcome and connected to the community, as well as serve as a means of attracting more newcomers to the province.

Along with other community and neighbourhood centres, Buckmaster’s Circle Community Centre offers a broad range of programs and services to meet residents’ needs. In doing so, it serves as a hub for residents to build new skills and knowledge, as well as to establish new social connections. Catherine’s initiative provides just one of many examples of their collaborative work with residents and other partners to improve the health and well-being of the community. The initiative also aligns with several key focus areas of the St. John’s Healthy City Strategy, the goal of which is to make St. John’s a healthier place to live.

Staff and volunteers from Buckmaster’s Circle Community Centre.

To find out more about the strategy, visit the Healthy City Strategy website, or contact us at healthycommunities@stjohns.ca.