The Fair Share Food Services Society has closed both Langley storefront distribution centres, the result of bad press and interference with suppliers, according to Society founder Kelly Fowler.
“We were driven out of business,” Fowler told The Times recently.
The Aldergrove store at 27117 Fraser Hwy. closed in September and the Langley City store at 5765 203A St. closed in November, he said.
Fowler said Fair Share will continue to collect food for distribution to local charities, but the non-profit has been forced to abandon selling low-cost food to low-income people.
“We’ve had to change our direction because we’re under attack,” Fowler said.
“We’re not doing any retail.”
Fowler said some suppliers stopped donating food and other products to Fair Share because of negative news coverage and lobbying by rivals.
He said the controversy was creating too much stress for himself and the other volunteers he says all worked without getting salaries (although expenses were covered).
“It got to be too much of a burden,” Fowler said.
Fowler said the shutdown has stranded 800 Fair Share clients.
One former volunteer, Virginia Mary, posted a statement on Facebook decrying the shutdown.
“I am a single mom who is going to college and working [at] Fair Share literally saved my life,” Mary wrote.
“Before I knew about it, my grocery bills were over $400 per month. After Fair Share they were half that.”
Now there is no Fair Share, Mary went on to say, “I’m back at the overpriced grocery stores and the expired, boxed food at the food bank.”
Most of the controversy concerned a door-to-door food-collecting campaign called Operation Clean Out Your Pantry that dropped off paper bags with a note requesting donations of non-perishable foods and canned goods.
Food banks and charities in Abbotsford, Maple Ridge and Surrey objected, saying Fair Share was wrongfully claiming to have their support.
In 2012, when Fowler was just starting out and operating as the Fraser Valley Grocery Resource Society, he ran afoul of the Abbotsford Community Services’ (ACS) Food Bank.
The food bank complained the grocery bag note was misleading because Fair Share was saying “we support the local food banks” and that would make people think ACS was operating the program.
At the time, Fowler told the Abbotsford News the bag campaign would be halted in Abbotsford.
In 2014, the bag campaign attracted flak in Maple Ridge and Surrey.
Youth Unlimited, a group that operates an in-school breakfast program in Maple Ridge, complained it was misleading of Fair Share to say it supported Youth Unlimited.
Dennis Hemminger, the area director of Youth Unlimited, said his organization was not associated with Fair Share.
“They shouldn’t be soliciting outside their area,” Hemminger said.
Fowler told the Maple Ridge News it was a mistake that had been dealt with.
“We’ve got it all straightened out,” Fowler said.
When Fair Share donation bags appeared in a Cloverdale neighbourhood, it prompted criticism by Marilynn Herrmann, executive director of the Surrey Food Bank.
Herrmann told the Cloverdale Reporter newspaper that organizations like Fair Share are “popping up all over the place” and are not affiliated with the food bank.
“We do not barter, trade or sell donated food,” Herrmann said, adding the food bank also doesn’t canvass door-to-door.
Fowler said Fair Share solicits donations outside Langley because it delivers food as far away as Tsawwassen.
The donated food was distributed to the homeless, shut-ins and Fair Share volunteers, Fowler said.
Fair Share provided The Times with a list of agencies it assists, including Triangle Community Resources (a Langley-based agency that provides employment services under government contract for people with “multiple barriers”), the SDA (Seventh Day Adventist) food bank in Aldergrove, Betty Gilbert Elementary School, Salvation Army Soup Kitchen, Mission Food Bank and Christian life Assembly Recovery Church.
Before establishing Fair Share, Fowler was co-founder of the Oasis Outreach Society in Chilliwack, which recently opened a store in Langley on 203 Street and Douglas Crescent that re-sells donated food items at reduced prices to low-income people.
Fowler is no longer associated with Oasis.
- with files from Jennifer Lang, Monisha Martins and Vikki Hopes.