Valuing People

Explore Our Work On:

Centering Lived Experience With LLEAG

With their first year complete, the Lived and Living Experience Advisory Group (LLEAG) entered 2024 ready to make a difference. They played a key role in consulting on Food First NL and Stella's Circle's Charter Avenue proposal. Their feedback — rooted in lived experience — was key to the proposal’s success. LLEAG’s ongoing involvement will continue to shape the programming and design of this exciting new space.

Advocacy also grew as a foundation for LLEAG's impact. In the spring, they met with professionals connected with their six core advocacy goals. By the fall, they had crafted a strategic advocacy plan to narrow their focus. For 2025, their main focus will be the federal and provincial elections, where they plan to push for income interventions and challenge corporate power and profits.

Kayla, a woman with long hair, glasses, and an upper arm tattoo, sits in the CBC radio studio on Prince Philip Drive. A microphone is positioned in front of her, and she wears corded headphones as she looks off-camera.

Photo Credit: Amanda Gear, CBC

2024 Program Highlights

  • Holding 11 LLEAG-wide meetings and six expert committee meetings

  • Seeing Members featured in seven media interviews

  • Facilitating Member-led presentations at

    • six Regional Food Action Meetings

    • Holy Trinity High Social Justice Conference

    • Community Food Centres Canada Summit panel

  • Joining a letter to the editor campaign to advocate for advancing the right to food with income-solutions

  • Creating internal leadership opportunities for Members. Opportunities included research, facilitation, writing, and assisting with recruitment and orientation.

“I found my calling for advocacy. I hope I can continue to bring real change to food insecurities and a better future for generations to come.”
— T.H., LLEAG Member
A wood fence painted green and strung with bits of fishing nets on a foggy day. A white and blue dory and a number of shipping pallets sit just inside the fence, a small white and green shed visible behind.

Expressing Our Gratitude

  • Our Communications Team, for their support with our social media introduction campaign, recruitment, media training, and a discussion on using stories and media to challenge stigma

  • Madi, for being LLEAG’s unsung hero since the beginning. She supports us in every way — from note-taking and meeting facilitation to gut-checking decisions and emotional support

Learn More

Panel show talking about costs of living and being a parent (CBC The Signal)

An icon of a recording microphone with stand.

Panel show talking about the high price of food moving into the winter months (CBC The Signal)

A video player icon.

Finding Our Groove As a Growing Team

After a few years of rapid growth, 2024 was about finding our groove as a larger, mostly remote team. Here are four things we focused on.

1.

Learning what it means to be a larger team. It's important to us that our staff feels valued, connected, and supported, no matter their location. We're settling into different ways of communicating and collaborating. It's a slow, ongoing process but one that's critical to our ethic of care

2.

Reflecting on and adapting our approach to internships at our social enterprises. We hosted two interns in 2024, one at Food on the Move and one at the Western NL Food Hub, and expect to host more in the future. We want to ensure young people can learn and grow during their time with us.

3.

Expanding our Occupational Health and Safety commitment. Our staff has grown. We have two worksites and two new vehicles. These changes required an updated approach to OHS. We created a new committee, developed new policies, and completed improvements.

4.

Completing professional development for all staff. We want our staff to feel inspired and connected to our work. Last year's PD helped build our professional capacity and supported our staff to explore different aspects of our mission.

The collected staff of Food First NL poses at a lookout point on the Manuels River trail on a sunny summer day. Clear skies illuminate the rapids rushing in the background.

2024 Team Highlights

  • Gathering at our annual staff retreat, exploring Conception Bay South, and getting the keys to 77 Charter Avenue!

  • Working with Stella’s Circle to jointly hire our new Charter Avenue Program Assistant, Theresa

  • Implementing a new HR policy for Food Provisioning and Community Service time. Staff can take seven hours a month of paid time for food provisioning and/or community service (volunteer) activities.

  • Celebrating five-year, or longer, workiversaries for five staff members! We’ve worked hard to create a respectful, joyful workplace where people want to stay. These retention milestones are a wonderful nod to that effort. We are grateful for our long-term staff’s leadership and mentoring.

FFNL staff crowd into Taylor's, a seafood and produce store in CBS styled with slatwood ceilings and fishing net decor.
A freckled hand picks spruce tips from the patterned blanket they rest on. Wooden mortar and pestle visible at top.
FFNL staff at Avalon Homesteading, gathered in a clearing near a fenced area. Trees surround the group under blue skies.
In the CBS Community Garden at the Manuels River Interpretation Centre, Julia Bloomquist and FFNL staff learn about the operations of the garden from a Centre staff member in full sunshine.

Highlights from our 2024 staff retreat in Conception Bay South. Thanks to our guide, Julia Bloomquist, and our hosts: Town of CBS, Avalon Homesteading, Manuels River, CBS Community Garden, Taylor's Fish, Fruit & Vegetable Market, and Shelby Beals.