Check It Out: Great things start from small beginnings

By Joan Janzen

A retired man volunteered at the local hospital, playing piano for patients. After he had finished his performance he said goodbye to one of the patients and said, “I hope you get better soon.” The patient replied, “I hope you get better too.”

It’s a funny comment, but the truth is seniors contribute a significant portion of volunteer hours in Canada. Just four years ago, Jacintha and Jim Collins, a senior couple from Ontario, started up a small endeavour that grew into a major charitable organization called Harvest Hands. Faytene Grasseschi interviewed Jim and Jacintha recently on Faytene TV.

“Four years ago we started collecting food for local charities and groups that were suffering from lack of food and no resources to buy anything,” Jacintha explained. It started with a car load, then a van load, a bigger truck, and four years later they have tractor trailers picking up and delivering an average of $150,000 worth of food every week to 270 organizations in Ontario. Those organizations include food banks, senior homes, lunch programs, pregnancy centres, shelters, missions, and anybody who needs food.

Jim was the driving force behind the initiative. “I knocked on doors, going to retailers, growers, food processors asking for surplus, seconds or food that was approaching its best before date,” he said. “We were amazed at their response. Now every week they rescue, pick up and deliver food that would otherwise go to a landfill.

Statistics report Canada produces enough food for 52 million people, yet one in six Canadians experiences food insecurity every day. Furthermore, statistics also show 58% of all food produced in Canada is never consumed, 86% of waste occurs along the supply chain, and 45% of that waste is avoidable.

Which may help to explain why Jacintha discovered, “The more food we gave, the more we started to get back.” Harvest Hands helps retailers save money by not paying to take food to the landfill and charities receive free donations and delivery of food.

Further statistics report the over production of food in Canada is equal to 124,000 fifty-three foot tractor trailers full of food. “That’s the amount of food wasted annually,” Jim said. “There’s a simple, but not necessarily easy answer.”

Faytene observed that the not necessarily easy answer involves the heavy lifting of Harvest Hands’ 200 monthly volunteers. “We clock 1200 volunteer hours every week,” Jim said. “That’s equivalent to about $20,000. Without volunteers we couldn’t do anything.”

When they started four years ago, Jim recruited everyone in their circle of friends and acquaintances as volunteers, and it grew from there.

“It takes a village of people to do what we do every single day. And they (the volunteers) did it with their whole hearts and are still doing it four years later,” Jacintha said. They have students, grandchildren, church groups and charities who periodically help at Harvest Hands.

“It’s the thing we wanted to do our entire life, and now we’re experiencing it,” Jim said. “It gives us the opportunity to show people the goodness of God.”

Jacintha said people always ask how they accumulated all the contacts who give them food. She said it was simple, “The more food we gave, the more we started to get back. Every step we took God had a supply.”

The couple have many stories to tell about how their charity has touched the lives of individuals, and shared one example. A few years ago they heard about a pregnancy centre who had to cancel their fundraisers because of the lockdowns, and didn’t have supplies for the moms and babies.

“We loaded up a truck with food and diapers,” Jacintha recalled. “They said we’ll take one of these and one of these, and then we told them the whole truck load was theirs. And we still supply them to this day.”

The reclamation of food is relatively new, but there are other groups doing the same thing. Second Harvest - the largest food rescue organization in Canada, as well as FoodMesh (which also operates in Kindersley) are among those groups.

“There is a huge opportunity. Fifty percent of all food in Canada is wasted,” Jim said. “Our work can be replicated. We’ve had people come work with us for a week and study the process.”

It’s amazing what can happen when everyday people take a small step up and end up tackling the big issues of our time. During the spring of 2024, some food banks are already reporting as many visits as they usually receive at Christmas, which is the peak period. And with statistics showing there’s been a 78.5 percent increase in visits to food banks since March, 2019, it’s obvious that food insecurity has become a big issue throughout Canada.

The good news is everyday Canadians are helping alleviate the problem, with zero government involvement. In fact, it appears everyday Canadians are doing a better job than government ever could.

“There’s a network that you’re not even aware of if you’re not in that situation,” Jacintha said. “They help one another and protect one another.” And that could very well be the secret that drives their success.

This Ontario couple started from nothing. They came out of a tough business situation and turned their pain into purpose. “We didn’t have a strategic plan,” Jim said. “We’ve seen that the harvest of generosity will grow, and honestly we’ve seen that in real time.”