As part of our holistic approach to supporting our Community Centre neighbourhoods, CCA offers referrals and activities to support food security, health, and wellness.

Instruction and guidance pertaining to mental and physical health concerns is provided through our Employment, Education, and Youth Programming.

Our Community Centre partners also support a variety of wellness initiatives and services. These vary by Centre but include access to public health nurses and Nurse Practitioners, Healthy Baby Clubs, and a Community Food Bank at the MacMorran Community Centre.

Food Security

In January 2020, a record-breaking snowstorm resulted in the City of St. John’s calling a state of emergency which lasted for eight days. This storm, now known locally as “Snowmageddon”, caused supermarkets to close and not be able to restock when they did re-open, public transportation to shut down, and businesses to close leading to lost wages. As a result, food security became a critical issue in our neighbourhoods. This led CCA to partner with individuals, organizations and businesses to provide food security initiatives in our Community Centre neighbourhoods.

In less than 8 weeks, a public health state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic led CCA to continue to support food security activities for our Community Centre Neighbourhoods. CCA was supported by many generous funders to provide food hampers and gift cards to residents.

A wonderful fundraiser “Food Now” was created by Mary Walsh and Louise Moyes which led to over $85,000 being raised to support a local restaurant to provide hot meals to our neighbourhoods on a weekly basis for over a year.

Wellness

During COVID, CCA was supported by United Way – Newfoundland and Labrador to do a Needs Assessment of our five Community Centre neighbourhoods.

Based on the information collected from our neighbourhood residents, we provided continued food security activities including hot meals delivered to people’s homes, cultural food items, wellness kits which included PPE, hand sanitizer, masks and information about COVID-19, and learning supports including translation and interpretation services.