It’s the last thing you would expect in a place like Downtown Vancouver.
Right below BC Place, somebody is growing organic vegetables. The same can be found in Strathcona, along Main Street, and in East Vancouver.
Plastic and wooden containers are lined up in long rows, various greens sprouting in all of them. The company responsible for the odd view is Sole Food Street Farms.
Sole Food’s location is unusual, but something else makes it special: Its employees. Most of them are former drug addicts or people with mental health issues, recruited straight from the Downtown Eastside. Not coincidentally, this is where Sole Food was founded by Michael Ableman and Seann Dory in 2009.
Manager Lissa Goldstein describes their motivation as “wanting to create community through agriculture.” Ableman and Dory acquired half an acre of a parking lot and started to grow vegetables. They started with six workers; after a major donation-supported expansion in 2012, they now employ 25. The three new farms expanded their plots to 4.5 acres and the harvest is sold to 60 different restaurants.
The employees’ complicated background forces Sole Food to make concessions. “Our employees can work between four and 40 hours a week. We’re also far more lenient than other companies, for example when somebody is late. It’s very rare that we fire somebody,” says Goldstein. She calls the concept “providing meaningful employment.” Sole Food is a way back into society. Among the farmers’ portraits, their website proudly presents alumni with their current jobs.
Last summer, Sole Food reached another milestone. A crowdfunding campaign financed a new stall for them on Granville Island. With the expected profits, they plan to open a pay-what-you-want stall on the Downtown Eastside. The aim is to give the low-income inhabitants of the area access to high-quality organic food.
Which is the last thing you would expect them to have.
