The Community Food Centre: Creating space for a just, sustainable, and healthy food system

Abstract

Alternative food initiatives have been challenged by critics to address the long-term, structural challenges confronting the food system in an integrated and comprehensive way. Confronting these challenges requires dynamic, multilevel and multisectoral strategies that integrate antipoverty efforts, ecological sustainability, food, wellness and community building throughout all aspects of the food system. Moving initiatives beyond the margins can begin by identifying and building on the successes of existing projects. In this pursuit, this paper articulates the case of The Stop Community Food Centre as it has evolved from a food bank offering emergency relief into a thriving neighborhood hub where people come together to grow, cook, and share food, and where people advocate for measures to establish a more just, sustainable, and healthy food system for all.