By Cheryl Jahn

Food Box program growing

Aug 18, 2023 | 4:41 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Every Thursday, a small army of folks collect everything from farm fresh eggs to leaf lettuce and beets to generate upwards of thirty food boxes.

Warren Sunstrum, a chef by trade, says there are a lot of motivations behind this endeavor.

“Yeah, absolutely. You know, there’s a huge need for food security here. As they say that it takes three days for us to run out of food. So if we’re cut off from anything that’s, you know, it only takes 72 hours until we’re completely out of food. And we saw that during the road closures. It wasn’t even 24 hours and the shelves are bare. So we’re trying to help to build a community in that kind of sense. It’s not just like having food security. That’s a very important thing to you, but like good food, food that’s going to be nutritious, you know,” says Warren Sunstrum with the Foraging Moose Farm.

The “Get Your Weekly Food Box” program was started a couple of years back for several reasons: Food security, gardening, and healthy living.

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“Yeah, I guess all of the above. But definitely does provide a lot. Connect local produce to local consumers, local people that really want to get local fresh produce. So a lot of people like this because you can subscribe for the season,” explains Roanne Whitticase, with the Weekly Food Box.

And the variety of foods found in these boxes dispels the myth that we’re limited to what we can grow in this region.

“There’s lots of opportunity to build and or grow. And especially we have greenhouses like there’s this season extension options out there. You just need a little bit of money and a little bit of capital. But I believe that if we had, you know, one of these farms and every small community in Prince George, like we wouldn’t need the grocery store, we could support each other.’

And growing food in the North has changed recently with more awareness of what can and can’t be grown.