A youth-led national organization advocated for long-term solutions to end hunger on Halloween night, by collecting food and donations instead of candy.
This Halloween, the annual Trick or Eat event took place once again. It brought the issue of food insecurity to the attention of all communities, one door step at a time. Thousands of ‘Trick or Eaters’ dressed up in costumes and knocked on doors across Canada to collect food for local food agencies.
Trick or Eat works with the Meal Exchange program is a non-profit organization that works towards eliminating hunger in Canada. Together they seek to find the root cause of why food insecurity occurs. From there they work together with thousands of volunteers to try and solve it. The program places a large emphasis on finding long-term solutions as opposed to immediate ones to end hunger in Canada, so that one-day food insecurity can be nonexistent.
There are many ways to get involved with Trick or Eat, one option is to organize a campaign within your community to help find permanent solutions to resolve food insecurity, or you can just donate. By simply going door-to-door on Halloween and asking for food to donate instead of candy, ‘Trick or Eaters’ helped address the immediate concerns of food insecurity.
A 2012 research report found from the Food Insecurity Policy Research concluded that one in eight Canadian households experience food insecurity, meaning that they do not have an adequate supply of food to meet their dietary requirements. Food insecurity is commonly thought of as an issue for developing countries but it is important to update the public about how food insecurity is a pressing issue even in a developed country, such as Canada.
Every month almost 850,000 Canadians receive food from a food bank. Trick or Eat has been able to make a huge impact for those who suffer from food insecurity by providing up to 380,000 pounds of food that has been distributed amongst 85 different food agencies across Canada.
Trick or Eat is the beginning of the end of food insecurity, with thousands of youth volunteers and over 100,000 generous donors, the risk of hunger will be reduced in communities across Canada. Trick or Eat and the thousands of people involved within the organization make a difference, which affordable, healthy, and sustainable food can become achievable.
This piece was edited by Maha Syeda, food editor of CanCulture.