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Cumberland organization requests more funding and facility for food program

The Cumberland Community Schools Society is asking for financial support and a new facility from the Village Council.

During Monday’s council meeting, the society gave an update on their Cumberland Food Share Program, a program made to help residents get access to healthy and fresh food since April 2020.

During the presentation, the society said that last year saw the program deliver 1,356 food boxes to 183 residents in 68 homes, which includes 82 children and youth, 84 adults, and 17 seniors.

With residents currently struggling to get access to food, Executive Director of the society Sue Loveless says the need for this program increased over time.

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“Since the Food Share was established, registration for healthy food boxes quadrupled, so we started servicing 17 households, and that has now gone up to 74,” says Loveless.

“Due to funding restraints and the small size of the church we’re operating out of, we’ve set a cap of 75 households, which means we can register one more household before we have to start putting people on waitlists for the program.”

With the village having provided up to $71,000 in the last three years to the program, Loveless says having the village continue that support would help them out for the next few years.

“We’d like to request the village continue their support for this program at the range of 10 to 13,000 dollars per year for a five-year period, as it would help support the operating costs while we’re working on a sustainable funding model,” says Loveless.

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Along with the support, she adds they would love to have a bigger facility for the program, with the current facility still being seen as a small space for staff to operate in.

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