Local volunteer wins $1,000 to help raise awareness of food insecurity

Shannon Scodnick, a volunteer who was recently named to a team working to overcome food insecurity, has always believed in giving back to her community. But previous to a fateful meeting in 2016, she had focused her efforts on animal welfare and the environment. It was when Scodnick began volunteering at Red Oak Villa in Sudbury that she met someone who changed her path. That woman was Kaireen Crichton, founder of the Blue Door Soup Kitchen.

“She was just the most wonderful woman, and super inspiring,” said Scodnick. 

Then, Scodnick saw people in need, people in her own community who needed help. And so, she took Kaireen’s advice and started helping people.

The team she is now joining is one created by Canadian-based organic snack brand MadeGood, which announced a team of both American and Canadian volunteers called the ‘Un-Wrecking Crew,’ looking to ‘Un-Wreck the future” by leading local initiatives to end food insecurity.  

Food insecurity is the inadequate or insecure access to food due to financial constraints. According to Statistics Canada’s most recent numbers (2017-2018), one in eight households in Canada was food insecure, amounting to 4.4 million people, including more than 1.2 million children living in food-insecure households.

As part of the team, Scodnick will receive $1,000 worth of MadeGood products to use in her community outreach activities. Her outreach activities include her role on the Go-Give Project team. 

“I was looking for volunteer opportunities and started to notice everything that was going on downtown, just seeing more suffering,” said Scodnick. She began helping other organisations with meals and while handing them out, she met Ali Farooq and Evie Ali, founders of the Go-Give Project. “I got to know Evie and Ali with Go Give and just really loved the values of their organization.” She has been working with them ever since. 

Scodnick thinks it is a great thing that MadeGood is doing with their project. “It's a really cool prize and it's a great way to raise awareness about food insecurity, especially within our own community.” 

And it is that community that Scodnick feels is most important when it comes to volunteer work. “I'm very passionate about what I do and I've always loved to help,” said Scodnick. “It's really sad to see so many people in our community struggling, and I think it's important that we all come together, because we need to. It's important that every member of our community has access to food and food security.”