Pub date:
24th September 2013
The authors are available for
interview and features, contact
Zeljka Marosevic to discuss
publicity 07806791449 |
zm@mhpbooks.com
“THE STOP is an inspiring true story about how a low-income
neighborhood used good food to take charge of its community—it’s a
great lesson for all of us.” —Jamie Oliver
The number of people who received emergency food aid in the UK tripled last year. The rise of food banks has been in
the news weekly, in the Guardian’s Breadline Britain series and Paul Mason’s BBC reports. Church-run food banks
alone are reportedly opening at the rate of three every week simply to meet demand.
And perhaps most alarming of all, new visitors are predominantly young people.
But what kind of food are these people receiving? As a society, we should be
concerned with the quality of food we are giving to our poorest. One very
determined food bank director in Canada may have the best model for how we can
care for the poor and help improve their health and wellbeing.
In 1998, when Nick Saul became executive director of The Stop, a small urban food
bank, it was like thousands of other dreary, makeshift spaces, a last-hope refuge
where desperate people could stave off hunger for one more day with a hamper full
of canned salt, sugar and fat. For users of the food bank, knowing that this was their
best bet for a meal was a humiliating experience.
Since that time, The Stop has undergone a radical reinvention. Participation has
overcome embarrassment, and the isolation of poverty has been replaced with a
vibrant community that uses food to build hope and skills, and to reach out to those
who need a meal, a hand and a voice. It is now a thriving, internationally respected
Community Food Centre with gardens, kitchens, a greenhouse, farmers’ markets and a mission to revolutionize our
food system. Celebrities and benefactors have embraced the vision because they have never seen anything like The
Stop.
In telling the remarkable story of The Stop’s transformation, Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis argue in their
new book THE STOP: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a
Movement that we need a new politics of food, one in which everyone has a dignified, healthy place at the
table. By turns funny, sad and raw, THE STOP is a timely story about overcoming obstacles, challenging
sacred cows and creating lasting change.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
NICK SAUL was executive director of The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto
from 1998 to 2012 and is a recipient of the prestigious Jane Jacobs Prize and the Queen’s
Jubilee Medal. He is now president and CEO of Community Food Centres Canada, an
organization that will bring the innovations of The Stop to communities across Canada.
ANDREA CURTIS is an award-winning writer and editor. Her family memoir, Into the
Blue: Family Secrets and the Search for a Great Lakes Shipwreck, won the Edna Staebler
Award for Creative Non-Fiction. Curtis’s first children’s book is What’s for Lunch? How
Schoolchildren Eat Around the World.
SAUL and CURTIS live with their two boys in Toronto.
Praise for THE STOP
“THE STOP is an inspiring true story about how a low-income
neighborhood used good food to take charge of its community—it’s a
great lesson for all of us.”
—Jamie Oliver
“The riveting inside story of a food bank that through perseverance
and principle turned itself into
one of our most visionary movements for justice and equality.”
—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo
“In clear and honest prose, [Saul and Curtis] share their struggles and
hope with plain talk through tough decisions. How better to learn
about ending hunger than through the story of a former food bank
whose aim was to put itself out of business.”
—Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved
“An impassioned account of how to create food systems that foster
independence and eliminate the indignities of charity. Saul and Curtis
put a human face on poverty. If you want to know what today’s food
movement is really about— and why it is anything but elitist— read
this book.” — Marion Nestle, professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and
Public Health at New York University and
author of What to Eat
THE STOP by the numbers
Food banks:
• Created in the 1980s in response to economic downturn
• Meant to be a temporary solution, not a sustainable one
• Distribute processed or canned foods
But food banks also:
• Divide us into givers and takers, diminishing the agency and health of those who need
aid in our society
• Put recipients at risk of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity
• Cost taxpayers: child poverty alone costs the UK 25 billion pounds annually, according
to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
The number of people who received emergency food aid in the UK
tripled last year, rising from 128,697 to 346,992
If inequality were sliced in half in the United Kingdom:
• Murder rates would also be halved
• 80 percent fewer people would be imprisoned
• Obesity rates would drop by 50 percent
The Stop is a Community Food Centre with:
• An 8,000 square foot garden
• A greenhouse
• Farmers’ markets
• Cooking classes
• After-school programs
• Healthy food and support for pre-and post-natal care
• A mission to revolutionize our food system
The Stop by the numbers in 2011:
• 55,371 drop-in meals served
• 10,000 pounds of vegetables harvested from greenhouse and community garden
• $1.8 million of locally produced goods sold at The Stop's farmers' market
• 60 per cent of volunteers are low-income
The Stop’s annual operating budget has gone from $250,000 to $4.5 million dollars;
under Saul’s leadership, The Stop grew from 4 employees to 40 employees.