Not long after Josh arrived, we were faced with our first challenge as a new team: Snowmaggedon. At the time, our whole team was based in St. John’s, stuck in their homes as the storm raged and the food system shut down. 

All retailers in St. John’s, and in many other communities, were shut down during and after the storm, and many folks were left only with what they’d had in the cupboard before the storm hit. And, since St. John’s is  the distribution hub for much of Newfoundland and Labrador, delays in deliveries in St. John’s led to disruptions in other parts of the province. 

The emergency food system was also hit hard by the storm - food programs were forced to close and there was little in the way of infrastructure to get food to folks who needed it. Grassroots mutual aid efforts filled the gaps, and Food First NL staff worked hard from their homes to coordinate and communicate. 

Add to this the lost income that many folks faced as a result of business closures, particularly people who were already experiencing food insecurity, and it made for a very challenging situation whose impacts were felt long after the snow had been cleared. 

Snowmaggedon also got us thinking critically about food security in Newfoundland and Labrador, as barriers to grocery shopping, dwindling supply, and obvious imbalances in the import system we have for food in our province. 

Snowmaggedon, or something like it, is likely to happen again. Climate change is making extreme weather more common, and so Food First NL felt it was absolutely necessary to document, discuss, and learn from the state of emergency.  

In February we pulled together a day-long debrief with community leaders, government staff, and other food systems stakeholders to map out the lessons learned; we then hosted an evening of dialogue with the general public, packing the house at the St. John’s Farmers’ Market to reflect on the storm and the impact it had, particularly on the most marginalized folks in our community. 

We gathered a lot of very valuable information from this session, which helped inform our approach to COVID-19; though the crises were different, many of the impacts on community members were similar.