Winnipeg Harvest

Harvest Story

The idea of Winnipeg Harvest came into fruition after founder Lee Newton, a Winnipeg graphic designer saw an TV feature on New York’s only food bank at the time, City Harvest. The show had an impact on Newton, and she decided if no one was going to do something like this in Winnipeg, then she should.

Newton didn’t want to open a place where people came to line up for handouts. Instead, she decided to open Winnipeg Harvest as a food distribution centre. Food would be donated to the Winnipeg Harvest warehouse where it would be redistributed to the social agencies in Winnipeg and Manitoba. At present, we service over 320 agencies in Manitoba per month.

Nearly 64,000 people in Manitoba use food banks each month. More than 47%, are children.

In 2011, Winnipeg Harvest distributed more than 11 million pounds of food to more than 330 member agencies across Manitoba, including food banks, soup kitchens, youth programs and drop-in-centres.

Winnipeg Harvest is a founding member of Food Banks Canada, and a member of the Manitoba Association of Food Banks.