Celebrate 10 years of The SEED!
The SEED began in 2015 with a mandate to build community capacity around fresh food access in Guelph. We began by increasing cold storage and improving the distribution of nutritious foods. We have come a long way since then, help us celebrate!
Over 23% of households in Guelph-Wellington cannot afford the food they need to be well.
WE NEED TO BUILD A BETTER FOOD SYSTEM
Rebuilding a better food system means that we have to find new ways of doing things and fill gaps that traditional food systems were not built to address.
PROGRAMS
Food insecurity is an income based issue. Many people simply do not have enough money to afford they food they need. We offer free-to-access programming to complement our work with social enterprise to ensure we offer something to everyone regardless of socioeconomic status.
PARTNERSHIPS
We can’t rebuild a food system or address all the needs of a community alone. What we are doing is BIG and requires a great deal of collaboration with other organizations and businesses who can share knowledge, resources, connections, and ultimately share in the success of this common goal.
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
We are using innovative social enterprises as a way to involve the whole community in the solution. Sliding scale pricing allows us to offer something to everyone. Sales at retail pricing help offset a small fraction of operating costs, but more importantly gives everyone a chance to experience the quality of what we offer.
Read our blog posts below for more information on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ we are transforming and innovating within the food system…
From $1.2M to $2.2M in Donated Food: How Strategic Investments Are Fueling Greater Food Access
At The SEED, we are driven by our mission to ensure that everyone in our community has access to healthy, affordable food. In 2023, we distributed $1.2 million in donated food across Guelph-Wellington, but thanks to key investments and strategic improvements, we’re...
Fresh Food Prescriptions – Increasing Access to Nutritious Food in Health Care Settings
“We can access fresh fruit and vegetables and not have to stress about the financial aspect of it," said Crocker, "Money is tight, certainly for seniors, money is tight. Everything's gone up, gas has gone up, food at the stores have gone up, we might have been able to...
October 2023 SEED Champion: Tesfay Okubahans
Every month we highlight someone who makes the SEED the do-it-together movement that it is. It takes a community to feed a community, and we’ve got an incredible community. This month we want to introduce Tesfay Okubahans! Tesfay has been a community gardener since...
September 2023 SEED Champion: Jennifer Maddock
Every month we highlight someone who makes the SEED the do-it-together movement that it is. It takes a community to feed a community, and we’ve got an incredible community. This month we want to introduce Jennifer Maddock! Jennifer has been a volunteer at The SEED for...
The Development of the Upcycle Kitchen
The Upcycle Kitchen is a volunteer-led initiative that takes food that would have otherwise gone to waste and is instead cooked to make frozen meals or baked to make fresh and frozen muffins for sale. When we began the project in 2018 it had different outcomes...
August 2023 SEED Champion: Evan Graham
Every month we highlight someone who makes the SEED the do-it-together movement that it is. It takes a community to feed a community, and we’ve got an incredible community! This month we want to introduce Evan Graham! Evan has been a SEED volunteer since the early...
Applying Social Enterprise to Food Access Programming – The SEED Markets
In the previous post I spoke about the origins of The SEED, the reports that encouraged collective action, and the first steps we took in centralizing cold storage and distribution of nutritious food in our community. In this post I touched just briefly on the fact...
The SEED’s History: Establishing Centralized Storage and Distribution
The food system has been broken for decades. Food banks were created as a short-term intervention to provide access to food among people facing poverty during hard economic times. The Canadian Association of Food Banks was established in 1987 and Guelph has had a...
July 2023 SEED Champion: Tristan Henderson
Every month we highlight someone who makes the SEED the do-it-together movement that it is. It takes a community to feed a community, and we've got an incredible community! This month we want to introduce Tristan Henderson! Right from the start, Tristan has blown us...
Program Spotlight: Good Food Distribution
Food insecurity is an income-based issue. Since incomes exist on a spectrum so too does food insecurity. There are many people in our community who are marginally food insecure, that means their household incomes are such that they worry about running out of food...
The SEED is a charitable, non-profit food program of the Guelph Community Health Centre.
About the Guelph CHC
The vision of the Guelph CHC is A community without barriers to health and well-being. We reduce health inequities by providing inter-professional primary health services and community programs, focused on the populations we prioritize, in collaboration with community partners.
HOW THE SEED CONTRIBUTES TO THE VISION OF THE GUELPH CHC
Access to nutritious food is core to a person’s well-being. As a non-profit program we are able to design and operate programs that increase physical and financial access to food among people facing food insecurity.