Base Gatineau Turns Immediate Food Support into Lasting Community Connections

At Base Gatineau, a community food bank located in Gatineau, QC, food support begins with urgency, but it rarely ends there.  

Behind every visit, the team understands, are pressures that rarely exist in isolation.  

“It’s people that have reasonable good jobs, but they’re going through a bad phase,”  Frédérick Gates, executive director at Base Gatineau, shared. “It takes all their courage to ask for help.”

In recent years, there has been a significant shift in need for food support. There are now more working families, retirees facing rising living costs, single parents and individuals navigating the financial strain of separation or divorce. A growing number of newcomers are also turning to food banks, often facing delays in employment, barriers to credit and challenges securing stable housing.

Each day, the organization supports around 50 households, reaching roughly 150 to 200 people with essential food assistance. For children, approximately 800 school lunches are prepared and distributed every month, helping ensure consistent access to nutritious food throughout the school day.

Alongside this direct food support, social workers at Base Gatineau take time to understand each person’s situation, assessing whether they need short-term or longer-term assistance and connecting them with community partners who can help address the root causes of their challenges.

“We’re there to prevent homelessness and food insecurity.” Frédérick said.  

Increasingly, the focus is on prevention and early support; providing food assistance can help people stretch limited budgets so they can cover essentials like rent, utilities, and other basic needs, rather than having to choose between food and housing.

These efforts are strengthened through their partnership with Second Harvest.

“Second Harvest has become essential to us,” Frédérick explained.

Since beginning their partnership in 2022, Base Gatineau has rescued over 11,500 lbs of good, surplus food.  

A recent donation of living lettuce provided far more than Base Gatineau could use on its own. The shipment required coordination with multiple partners, turning a logistical moment into a shared community response.

“It created a buzz — people were talking about us who had never heard about the food bank before.”

For Base Gatineau, moments like this capture what makes the partnership so meaningful.  

“It’s not only about the food — it creates relationships,” Frédérick said.  

And in many ways, it is the relationships built that define the work. Frédérick has seen many people who once turned to the food bank return later as volunteers and supporters, continuing the cycle of care in new ways.

What people arrive with is immediate need. What the organization responds with is something broader: time, care and connection.