Touring The Root Cellar
The Root Cellar 440 Maple Ave SE Medicine Hat AB
A Lesson in Community Care: Touring The Root Cellar with Council Candidates
Last week, I joined a group of fellow city council candidates for a tour that should be essential viewing for anyone. Led by Executive Director Melissa Mullis, our visit to The Root Cellar was a powerful, eye-opening look at both the profound needs within our community and the innovative, compassionate solutions being deployed to meet them—all without a single dollar of ongoing government financial support.
The first lesson was in the name itself. This is no longer just a "food bank." It is The Root Cellar, a name chosen because “Gramma’s root cellar always had a jar of peaches.” It’s a philosophy of guaranteed support, warmth, and community that now operates from a revitalized old fire hall, a building purchased and paid off in just one year through remarkable community effort and fundraising. T
The Community Kitchen
They hold cooking classes in this enormous, well-equipped kitchen, teaching people how to cook foods they may not be familiar with to help stretch their food dollars.
The Root Cellar also has a garden space where they teach people how to grow their own food. A social worker assists clients in getting help from other agencies such as housing assistance, budgeting, health supports, etc.
A Rising Tide of Need: A Community's Response
The statistics Melissa shared with our group were staggering. In 2019, this organization served 935 people a month. Today, that number has skyrocketed to over 4,000. Seeing the scale of the operation and hearing that these are our neighbours—seniors on fixed incomes, two-income families, people struggling with physical and mental health issues and struggling students—makes abstract economic pressures painfully concrete.
As Melissa explained, the economic dominoes are falling. The low mortgage rates of 2020 have given way to rising costs, and people are losing their homes. The Root Cellar meets this soaring demand entirely through fundraising and community contributions. This fact alone is a powerful testament to local generosity. Support from local business includes
sponsorship for the Community Cafe
sponsorship for the Kids Club
donations of warehouse shelves
fresh produce
free shipping
donation of temporary warehouse spaces
The list goes on…there are a LOT of community supporters.
Dignity as a Guiding Principle
One of the most impactful takeaways was the commitment to dignity. The Root Cellar has moved from pre-packaged hampers to a shopping experience. Clients, by appointment to ensure a smooth process, choose their own food. The result? They take about 30 pounds less food, proving that choice reduces waste and restores autonomy.
“We used to watch people as they were shopping, but nobody abuses it,” Melissa told our group. “We often have to tell people to take the limit.” This trust-based, individual approach, funded entirely by donor dollars, is a model of efficient and respectful service. There are 13 items that are always guarantee to be “in stock”, these have limits. Diapers and feminine hygiene products are also always “in stock”.
Once upon a time, people seeking help from the food bank had to fill out forms and produce numerous documents before being able to access it. The Root Cellar does still have checks and balance but they provide food first, then they do the paperwork. Clients are assisted in becoming self sufficient if possible but some are on fixed incomes without a way to improve their situation. Nobody is turned away.
The Brown Bag lunch program is another wonderful example of preserving dignity. This is a program where lunches are delivered to local schools on a daily basis. Families do not have to fill out any paperwork - the requests come from the teachers themselves as they are the ones who notice when a child has no lunch or an inadequate one.
A Hub of Innovation, Powered by People
It was inspiring to see a community-powered organization operating with such efficiency. With zero government funding, The Root Cellar’s existence hinges on its ability to innovate and form powerful partnerships:
Circular Economies: The LOOP Program redirects inedible food to livestock and returns meat to the pantry.
Combating Waste: Unsold birthday cakes are frozen for families celebrating a child’s birthday.
Collaboration, Not Competition: They act as a hub collecting food from local stores (stores didn’t want multiple trucks picking up) and then supplying 48 other local organizations with food through their Food Collaboration program.
Eg - The Root Cellar provided the Mustard Seed with 75,000 lbs of food last year. This collaboration continues at the provincial level - if one food bank has a surplus of something perishable, they will share it with another food bank.
This self-sufficient, entrepreneurial spirit is a powerful example of what our community can achieve.
