Penticton's Purple Pantry is a bitter-sweet success
Allison Howard and Dave Corbeil built and created a community fridge and pantry in Penticton where people can give or take food as needed. A year and a half later, the project has been thriving and helping many locals. “We were concerned, following the pandemic, about the fact that...
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Allison Howard and Dave Corbeil built and created a community fridge and pantry in Penticton where people can give or take food as needed. A year and a half later, the project has been thriving and helping many locals.
“We were concerned, following the pandemic, about the fact that people were struggling and we could see grocery prices going up and we wondered how people who don’t have the means could be managing so we thought this would be a manageable project,” Purple Pantry co-founder Howard said.
“There’s a huge need. We’ve been noticing, and all of the providers of food are noticing, that the numbers keep going up all the time and we have a steady stream of people coming to pick up food.”
The Purple Pantry relies on donations to keep its shelves full, and businesses, organization, and individuals have all pitched in.
“We have two bakeries that donate bread every week, Starbucks donates baked goods, the farmers' market has donated a huge amount of fresh vegetables and we occasionally get things from Quality Greens, so businesses have helped," Howard said.
"Then, lots and lots of individuals, it’s been very gratifying to see the number of community people stepping up to donate, people are coming by every day to drop things off. We’ve also had a number of organizations that have put in fundraising efforts for us or collected food for us, so the community uptake has been fabulous.”
Howard noticed the need for the pantry has increased since the beginning of the project. This means that the Purple Pantry is set to stay available for those who need it and those who wish to help, as long as possible.
The Purple Pantry, while helping many people in the community, seems to also have brought together the residents of Penticton.
“We would like to continue for as long as we possibly can, it’s a lot of work, but we have 14 volunteers that help us every day, so we feel like we’ll be able to carry on for quite a long time,” Howard said. “We’re so grateful to the community and the individuals and businesses that have been so helpful to the program, it’s been so gratifying.”
The Purple Pantry is located in downtown Penticton, attached to Elk’s lodge at 346 Ellis St.
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