Which is what it takes to change a culture as negative and engrained as food banks
“You never know what someone has been through,” Ben MacMichael says, and that is what guides his treatment of everyone who comes through his door. They are people first and everyone has a right to food. Ben is the former manager of the West End Food Bank and now manager of the new Peter McKee Community Food Centre on St. George St. in Moncton.
“I have a big mouth,” he tells us, meaning that he’s an articulate advocate for the poor, loves to talk with everyone, exchange ideas and engage the media. But it also means that he is willing to say what is wrong with the system and keep saying it until things change.
A few years ago when the area food bank system obviously needed an overhaul — apparently there was a lot of infighting and many weren’t speaking to one another, Aaron Shantz, Our Food SENB’s coordinator who was tasked with getting everyone in the same room, said Ben took over the task. Aaron said, “Ben wrote a really long, mouthy letter telling them that if people wanted to raise old issues or just argue they weren’t welcome at the meetings.” The new food centre run by the Food DEPOT Alimentaire is the end result.
That Food Centre is part of Ben’s ministry and exactly where he wants to be. “I want people to leave here holding their head a little higher,” he says.
Agonizing over enough
He strives to provide good food for the clients of the food bank, as much fresh produce as he can and the best quality staples he can lay his hands on. “I will never put an item in the basket that I wouldn’t eat myself and I never hedge on baby food.” However, daily he is faced with the same dilemma every food bank manager who is dependent on donations must face. Sometimes you just have to give what you’ve got. People have to eat and a processed meal is better than no meal at all. He says, “The only time I ever agonize is when I know there should be two more bags to this order.”
The secret to keeping volunteers
Ben has no problem attracting and keeping committed volunteers which attests to his leadership skills, something he is proud of. There were many volunteers at the West End Food Bank the day that we visited and many of them, if not all, moved over to the new Food Centre on St. George. He said the secret is to put people in positions where they will succeed.
He has volunteers from all walks of life like a former nurse who was interested in promoting good nutrition and a young man who was there to get experience with people to put on his work resume. They were working happily and efficiently with little or no supervision and the whole operation seemed to run like clockwork. In fact, in the last six weeks of the West End Food Bank’s life when he was tied up with organizing the new place, Ben confides that the volunteers kept the place running smoothly. “They didn’t even need me.”
The big leagues
Although the new Food Centre opened its doors in May, it will not officially be opened until September. Back in March the plans for the new Food Centre were nearing completion and Ben was excited which was obvious in the way he sketched out the floor plan for us. But time and again he mentioned how many more clients he would then have to serve.
We also noted his personal connections with his clients and that he often refers to them as my people or my families. We wondered if he was going to be able to keep all these new people in his head. “I’m not good with names,” he said, “but I’m usually good with faces. I can usually remember something about them from a conversation when we were carrying on.” The layout of the new Food Centre was designed to play into that. He has a window onto the main floor and there will be a designated space where there will be coffee and snacks and chairs so he will be able to sit down with people at least a few times.
Normalizing the experience
Normalizing the food bank experience for people living on low incomes starts with humanizing the system, says Ben. He already knows that treating his people with respect comes naturally to him. “All the inclusive stuff, the people stuff, I feel that is the gift God gave to me.” The trick is to build it into the culture.
They have introduced appointments over the traditional drop-in format. He says this helps everyone including his families who know they have a spot reserved for them when they get there.
He also insists that equality is a given. “Everyone who comes in will be treated the same,” he says, meaning no favouritism. “The food bank staff shouldn’t have to like you for you to get an even share.”
But there is still a certain decorum that must be present for everyone to feel it’s their centre, whether they are clients, staff or volunteers. On the day we visited the new centre — a huge space with an immense amount of light coming in the windows and the walls painted beautifully bright colours — he told us how he had already had to set a client straight. The client who had been a patron of another food bank was letting off a string of “f-bombs” in the waiting area. Ben explained that that language might have been alright elsewhere, but it wouldn’t be here. Ben admitted that he wondered how the confrontation was going to play out, but the client accepted it and the new culture began to take hold.
Everyone welcome at the new centre
The first stage of the new Food Centre will be the basics — food bank and thrift store and a community garden and places to chat and drink coffee — but the next will be tearing out walls from the huge gym bathrooms to make a teaching kitchen where courses that anyone can attend will be held. Absolutely everyone will be welcome.
Ben said his dream is that when you see the people waiting at the new bus shelter the city will be building outside the centre, you won’t know why they’re there. “They could be there for the food bank, they could be there for the thrift store, they could be here for the community garden, they could be there taking a cooking class,” he says. It will all be just a centre built around good food.
Oct 11 2016
Kate Doyle — From Roller Derby to Food Security
At the dunk tank station for a charity fundraiser one Saturday morning in August, Kate Doyle was squatting on the sidelines with her partner, Eric Babineau, and their three-year-old daughter, Annette. They were watching spectators toss practice balls while Kate waited to be the first celebrity dunkee. Then a big guy stepped up, drilled a wild pitch high, hit a steel support causing the ball to ricochet past Kate’s little family and close to Annette. And a look somewhere between a poised rattle snake and an angry Rottweiler came over Kate’s face. The guy didn’t apologize, didn’t even look her way because, I think, he was embarrassed; but he must have felt it, that look of someone who was not offended, but guard-dog pissed that someone almost hit her little girl.
If you don’t know this reflex-to-protect side to Kate, or if you think it’s limited to staring daggers, then I don’t think you know Kate Doyle at all. But let’s rewind.
Lots of opinions
Kate says, “I’ve always had a lot of opions.” Perhaps her boss at the United Way volunteered Kate while she was on holiday to be a celebrity dunkee, she hoped all those opinions would translate into a lineup of people prepared to pay money to dunk her.
Gardens, and Shine Theory
My wife, Elaine Mandrona, and I were interviewing key players in the Moncton area food movement and Kate came to us via Aaron Shantz of Our Food SENB. Kate’s employer, the United Way of GMASENB, sponsors his organization, and he and Kate work closely out of the agency’s office in the Community Peace Centre on Church St. Kate is the Community Impact Manager and, among other duties, works with people applying for funding.
She’s keen to ensure conversations are two way, even if it is her is being interviewed, so it’s no surprise to hear she swears by Anne Friedman’s Shine Theory, which embraces collaboration over competition. “When you shine, I shine,” she said. “It’s related to feminism. It really resonates with how I work with people.”
Except for us, Oak Lane was deserted and quiet that morning and we chatted about food, the food movement, children and gardens — her garden, in particular.
We only learned about her Roller Derby career later, but we’ll get to that.
Moncton's Oak Lane
We interviewed Kate in Oak Lane, downtown Moncton. On a summer morning, there could not be quieter spot.
It always starts with a small box
“We’re going to start with a small box,” Kate told Eric, announcing her foray into gardening four years ago. Eric said, “Oh, OK. A small garden box.” A four-by-four box was made. The most recent expansion plans (four times that box) were hastily sketched and fired off in an email to Eric from work with the question, “Can we amp this up?” meaning the garden. Eric, ever supportive, said, “OK” and took a couple of vacation days and made it for her.
The garden also began expanding into potted tomato plants and herbs along the deck, and now that Annette is more helpful, Kate said, “I would love to see it take up the whole yard.” After all, she pointed out, there is a playground nearby if Annette needs to play. We think she was joking, and she may think she was joking, but you never know about gardeners.
Eric Babineau Kate's partner
Kate and Eric met through music. Kate often had bands crash at her place in Fredericton and Eric had left behind the triple-extra-large t-shirt he had bought at a concert. He connected to Kate via MonctonLocals.com (pre-Facebook message board) but for the life of her she couldn’t remember anyone at her place who was anywhere near big enough to wear a 3xl t-shirt. Eric is a small, or medium at most. He went over to retrieve his shirt, they got talking and the rest is history. He’s never worn the shirt.
Snap peas, tiny tomatoes and feeling full
We arrived at 9:00 am on a Sunday in July to photograph this garden and to meet Annette and Eric. The mid-summer sun was shining harshly making it all the more evident that the garden was sparse and struggling. (We were warned.) But seasoned and committed gardeners know this is how gardening goes, and that in July the game is far from over. When we returned in August it was lush.
However, a snap pea and cherry tomato harvest was never going to happen with a three-year-old loose and feeling entitled because, after all, she helped plant them from seed. For small children, snap peas and cherry tomatoes are too perfectly sized and positioned to imagine they aren’t growing just for them.
This year Annette reached the age when children become aware of a garden’s magic, that it can turn playing in the dirt into real food. Kate hopes this magic will parlay itself into a life-long, healthy relationship with food. Kate said, “We’re taught to be thin and beautiful instead of being healthy and full.” What she wants is for Annette to believe: “‘I can make my own food. I can be proud of what I eat. I can eat things that are good for me and make me feel good.’”
Snap Peas Magic for 3-year-olds
Snap peas are so magical they’re just sitting there waiting to be eaten by three-year-olds. Annette helped buy seeds as well as planted this year and really knows her way around the garden. Kate hopes gardening at this age helps Annette develop a natural and healthy relationship to food.
Where do gardening bugs come from?
The gardening bug, on Kate’s side, skipped at least one generation. She remembers picking strawberries with her family, but there was no agricultural tradition despite living on PEI, where farming is everything. On Eric’s side, though, there is an uninterrupted gardening tradition, including a sister who homesteads. Kate’s garden evokes Eric’s memories of raiding his mother’s garden, “pulling carrots out, wiping them on the grass, and eating them right out in the yard.” And last fall the three of them joined the Babineaus in picking a million apples — with Kate, everything is measured in millions, tons or hot minutes — processing some of them into apple butter that she slathers on pork chops.
Counting Tomatoes
Kate and Annette’s potted tomato plants. Annette loves tiny tomatoes and loves to count them. Of course, if you keep eating them, counting is less of chore.
Food for the Millennials
Food was simple for Baby Boomers because the food system was largely hidden: buy food at the grocery store; eat it; throw the scraps away. Millennials like Kate, though, felt the repercussions of the “invisible food system” and grew up feeling compelled to examine their habits and choices more closely.
Kate always thinks things through, usually by talking them out with friends both on- and offline and has been doing this since adolescence on PEI. “I always had a lot of opinions,” she said. “I tend to take a very hard stand on a lot of things.”
One of those stands was on eating meat. In her teens, Kate committed to being vegan as a protest, not against meat, per se, but against how industrial farms mistreated livestock and their keepers. She only gave veganism up in her late twenties when she became pregnant because she felt she couldn’t balance her and her baby’s nutritional needs with the time constraints of being a working mom. Still, eating meat brought up the same concerns about mistreatment. It was local farmers like Murray Bunnett, who raise their animals humanely, that helped her find balance, ethically and nutritionally.
And she’s comfortable with that decision — to begin eating meat again — because she has examined other assumptions about food. Concerning a brand of tofu she loves: “You think in your head tofu is healthy and is a good thing to eat and you’re being ethical because you’re not killing an animal. But I was thinking, Ok, hold on, this tofu came from China: How was it produced? Who is producing it and what conditions are they living in? Is it any more ethical to be buying this because it’s not killing an animal versus me supporting a local farmer who is treating his animals fairly with love and kindness and compassion? Where’s the balance there?” For Kate, the key to navigating the myriad issues around food is to strike that balance, a good stand for anyone who must work with people in the local food movement.
Kate at Home
Kate lives with her partner Eric and their daughter Annette in older house in Moncton core that’s been redone. It’s one of places where there is more building than lot. Still, Kate would like to make the most of it with as much garden as possible.
Four Year Gardening Veteran
Kate has been gardening for four years, now. She said the first year was terrible because she was too timid about
Kate and the food movement
“It’s a lot like roots,” Kate said of the movement. “It’s happening underground. It’s really incredible how people are collectively working through all these things.” But she, too, has become a player because she is the Community Impact Manager for the local United Way. Kate estimated during this past summer that, with a food box program she worked on, she spent two days a week on food and garden-based projects. What’s more, she said, “A lot of the work I do may not be directly food related, but food is part of it.” She regularly meets with farmers like Murray Bunnett, community food workers like Janet Hamilton of the Mapleton Teaching Kitchen and homesteaders/activists like Aaron Shantz of Our Food SENB, so she can’t help but be steeped in all that is going on. And she is in awe.
“I think that Moncton has this really cool vibe happening right now. Things are literally growing,” she said. There are the little things. “We walk downtown and we see planters with food in them. You may not notice, but you walk by Calactus (Café) and there’s little strawberries and grapes. I know it’s small scale. I know it doesn’t address broader issues, but it’s really cool to live in a community that that is a thought people have: ‘I am going to make sure there is food ripe for the picking.’” And there are big things, like how area food banks have shifted to a progressive food centre model like the Peter McKee Community Food Centre. Kate feels that in Moncton “we’ve really embraced arts, culture and now we’re looking at food for social change which is important to me.” In fact, she claims, “I love Moncton, and I will fight anyone who says that’s it’s not the best place.” Which is tall praise from a woman who, just a few years ago, hated Moncton; hated it so much it took Roller Derby to change her mind.
Eve McQueen In the yellow helmet
Back in her Roller Derby days, Kate was a blocker, eventually a pivot, a special position that kind of directs strategy. She’s the one with yellow helmet. (Marc Henwood Photography)
Eve McQueen, because Katefrontation was taken
Understanding Kate is easier if you factor in Roller Derby. I put it in upper case because when Kate talks about Roller Derby, it sounds upper case, like the Roman Catholic Church or the House of Commons. She played for the Lumbersmacks.
“I was really strong and I was unafraid. And I hit really hard,” Kate said of her Roller Derby era, the era pregnancy and then a shattered knee ended.
Finding Roller Derby was about finding her squad, her crew. “I loved this being something started by women for women with no ulterior motives around it. It was a place all women could go, all women shapes, ages, sizes,” she said. “It’s not often that women are allowed to have a space and be proud of who we are and our bodies and what we’re able to do. So it was really cool.” It was a tight community. (Roller Derby was first played in 1935 and has waxed and waned in popularity. The Twenty-First Century iteration is largely dominated by women’s teams.)
Eve McQueen was her show name. “I wanted Katefrontation but it was taken.” The name was inspired by Eric because, “If you look at Eric, I feel there is a striking resemblance to Steve McQueen.”
Roller Derby dominated her life, but that is to be expected with Kate. “I’m an all or nothing kind of person. My whole social life revolved around it. I want to go back, but I can’t.”
She can’t because she returned too soon after having Annette. “I was desperate to get back. I needed to get out of the house. I missed my friends and I missed roller skating. I really loved it.
“The second night back we’re doing a scrimmage and I should not have been playing. I was still all loosey goosey from having a kid because your muscles are all messed up and I went to go in to hit somebody.” Eve McQueen was a blocker. There are blockers and jammers. Jammers do the scoring through holes blown through the opposition by blockers. “I hadn’t been on roller skates in a year and a half and I twisted the wrong way and twisted my knee and shattered the whole thing.” And it was over. Forever. Reconstructive surgery is an option for professional athletes, but, apparently, Roller Derby at the Lumbersmack level doesn’t qualify.
Annette
The shattered knee might have officially ended The Roller Derby era, but it had really ended the year before, more specifically, within five minutes of Kate finding out she was pregnant. In that five minutes, she informed her teammates that she couldn’t play. She lied to them, mind you, making some excuse because she was torn by her loyalty to them, but her baby immediately shot to the top of her list of priorities. Eric’s, too. Both had jobs involving a lot of travel or long hours, but both found jobs closer to home. Kate said, “Our entire life has revolved around our child this year.”
All the signs of great parenting are there: their obvious belief that their kid is the smartest kid, ever; “tons” of pictures on Facebook; the way they talk to her like she’s a fully functioning person, not a baby; the pride in her helping in the garden despite the episode of washing it out with the hose on the wrong setting.
A Fine Gardener
Annette demonstrating her garden watering skills. Now that she’s three, she is helping with some of the chores. Watering is a favourite chore and she is quite good at it, but one of her first efforts nearly washed the garden out because the hose was set to jet rather than shower.
Annette is happy, confident, bright and independent. And she’s uni-lingually French. “We decided it was really important for her first language to be French. It’s not my first language, it’s my husband’s,” Kate said. Kate did French immersion in school, but said that despite understanding really well, she had no confidence in speaking the language. While the decision isn’t exactly unusual in Moncton, for me, as someone who has struggled for years to learn French with marginal success, it strikes me as courageous to put a language between you and your child and then expect to bridge that gap by the time the child can speak. Kate said, “It’s been a learning process for me to describe all these things in French,” but she made it. But that’s what I learned about Kate in our four meetings, that she commits to these things, unreservedly, wholeheartedly, no looking back — veganism, Air Cadets(see sidebar), Roller Derby, gardening, French for her girl.
But that Saturday morning by the dunk tank, what I knew about Kate Doyle was all gardens and Shine Theory. Watching her squatting with Annette and Eric, and Kate with that angry-Rottweiler look on her face, I was caught off guard, my camera dangling by my side, wondering what was going to happen. It was only later that day that she told us, “When I am loyal to something, I will do anything for those people.” And she hadn’t yet told us that she had been a bruising blocker for the Lumbersmacks, and that she “hit really hard”(present tense), and that despite not looking it, she was really physically aggressive. I didn’t know the depth of her commitment to the things she loved and believed in and the lengths she’d go for them. If I had known that, I would have had the camera at the ready because with Kate Doyle anything could have happened.
Diana Gregory of the local Canadian Mental Health Association gives a sopping Kate Doyle a hug. Kate, in her typical thorough way, Googled all about the dunk tank; in particular, how do you get out. Turns out, there are steps in the tank.
By Archie Nadon • food movement, food security, people