Clarina Taylor lives in Gimli, and received a call from her family in St. Theresa Point asking for help.
Her family needed food, due to the high cost of groceries on the remote northern Manitoba reserve.
Taylor wanted to help, and felt it was her duty to start a campaign to bring food to them.
“That is where I’m from, that is my band,” she said. “Even though I was adopted and I haven’t lived there since I was a little girl, that is still where my family is from. Maybe I know enough people in Manitoba that I could at least ask and see if there’s a possibility of donations I could get together.”
Taylor started asking her Facebook friends if they would be willing to help donate food, preferably dried, light packaged food that could be transported to St. Theresa Point using winter roads.
Her earliest post at the beginning of February has been shared over 40 times.
Lakeview Suites in Gimli has donated a free night’s stay to someone who helps with this project.
Taylor says everyone who shares her Facebook status or donates will be put into a draw for that prize.
“It’s important to help, but also important to give back to the helpers,” she said.
The easiest way to help with this project is through financial donations.
“We’ve had financial donations from Ontario and British Columbia,” said Taylor. “I think that’s probably the easiest, and makes more sense than trying to ship a bag of groceries, although that is more than welcome, too.”
Donations go toward transportation costs, like gas, and any extra money will go toward topping up food hampers.
Taylor made it clear she would not be sending any money to St. Theresa Point, just the food. There are also drop-off places in Gimli and in Winnipeg for food. More information about the drop-off spots can be found on Clarina Taylor’s Facebook page.
Taylor will be accepting donations until Feb. 25. At the end of the month her initiative will begin to transport food to St. Theresa Point.
“There may be some people who don’t need it at all,” said Taylor. “I think we will do a list and everyone gets a bag that needs one, and if there is extra it can go over to the next community and we will just see how much we have.”
This project is about community support, says Taylor.
Never doubting for a minute they would receive the help they needed, Taylor says this project also brings up other relevant issues in Manitoba like racism and the current boycott of Northwest Company’s Northern stores, because of the high price of food in northern Canada.
“We are all participating in something really great by helping out and recognizing the issues for what they are,” she said, “which is to make sure people have food when they need it. We give up a little, to share a little bit.”
