A group of Okotoks students is trying to make it easier to fill the bellies of those in need.
Westmount School’s Grade 6 classes have come together to make food more accessible for those in the community who need it most with their service project, Little Free Pantries.
“It’s like a Little Free Library, except it’s full with non-perishable food items, so if people are running low on food they can walk by and grab a snack or stuff for dinner,” said student Emma Duke.
Community members are able to fill the boxes with food items, similar to donating to food bank bins at grocery stores, she said.
The idea came from a news story they saw on CBC about Little Fee Pantries in Cochrane, she said. It inspired the students to create something similar at home.
“We’re planning on making them here for our Grade 6 ‘Change Agents’ unit,” said Duke. “And we’re planning on putting a few of them around Okotoks.”
The Little Free Pantries will be monitored regularly by Westmount School and its partners, Okotoks Fire Services, the Town of Okotoks and the Okotoks Food Bank. The boxes themselves are being sponsored by Broadview Builders.
Shauna Laubman-Duff, one of three Grade 6 teachers leading Little Free Pantries, said the project helps Grade 6 students understand how they can make changes in their community.
The students were divided into different teams to take on all of the tasks necessary to make Little Free Pantries a reality, she said. One of those groups is in charge of building the boxes themselves.
“The people from Broadview Builders have committed to teaching the kids how to design them properly and help them build,” said Laubman-Duff.
The company is also providing building materials by recycling construction items from other projects, she said.
There will be about half a dozen pantries throughout Okotoks, and the students are looking for four or five homeowners to place one on their property. In addition, the students hope to get two into public parks.
Laubman-Duff said her students are learning valuable lessons.
“The emphasis this year is on learning how they can be active citizens in the local democracy,” she said. “That’s what spearheaded the pantry.”
Working within the framework of local democracy was at play as one student group attended a council meeting on April 10 to request help from the Town in finding accessible locations for the Little Free Pantries.
Council voted to give administration the go-ahead to work with the students.
“I think we wanted to be able to achieve that group of Grade 6’s great ideas,” said CAO Elaine Vincent. “We’re going to work with them to find the best two locations we can in town that are going to allow them to put up those Little Free Pantries, then work with them on monitoring it to see if we need to make adjustments in the future.”
She said the Town will be investigating whether there’s a way to align the Little Free Pantries with a couple of the Little Free Libraries that are currently located in five Town parks, or find alternate locations that make sense.
The students won’t be expected to go through the full planning and development process, she said.
“We’re not going to require a development permit, so it works best if we can actually do it on private property, but we’ll have to explore and see what works best there,” said Vincent.
She said it’s an important project for the Town to support because it unites the community together and demonstrates the power of young people committed to making a difference.
What impressed her most about the students’ presentation though was the fact they not only brought forward a good idea, but they understood the reality of what could go wrong and attempted to address the issue as part of the proposal.
“We all know someone could walk away with all the food, all of those things are real,” said Vincent. “But we are prepared to accept that risk because overall the good outweighs those risks, and that was what was important for me to see.”
