mission & values

Mission

The Stop Community Food Centre strives to increase access to healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds community and challenges inequality.

Values

We believe that food access and security are basic human rights. We recognize that problems of food access and security are often related to multiple issues requiring a holistic approach to service delivery. We strive to improve the quality of life for community members. We feel that the development of mutual responsibility - enabling community members to work together and depend on each other for inspiration and mutual support - is important to our work and us. In all our work we will respect each other. We strive to remove all visible and invisible barriers to ensure that our services and programs are accessible. We wish to be as inclusive as possible and will remain flexible in our work, recognizing and valuing the unique role of all people in our diverse community.

Philosophy

A key tenet of The Stop's approach is that community members must be involved in making decisions about how our organization operates. When program participants are involved -- as front-line volunteers, program advisory committee members, gardeners or cooks -- the stigma associated with receiving free food is often diminished or erased. Food access programming that not only confronts food insecurity but also creates opportunities for community members to forge their own responses to hunger helps to nullify the way charity divides us as full participants in society -- the powerful and the powerless, the self-sufficient and the shamed. At The Stop we are creating a new service delivery model: a community food centre. Anchored by our commitment to the principle of social justice, The Stop strives to meet basic food needs and, at the same time, foster opportunities for community members to build mutual support networks, connect to community resources and find their voices on the issues that matter most to them. This philosophy makes us unique.