COVID-19 Grocery Response NDG

Background

The Québec response to the COVID-19 pandemic requires seniors 70 and over to self-isolate. This places this segment of the population in a difficult position when it comes to access to essential necessities. Seniors with limited or no social networks and no access to the Internet are especially at risk and may have to leave their homes to purchase groceries and other essentials.

What we are doing

A group of community groups and organizations in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG) neighbourhood of Montreal is working together to respond to some of the needs of seniors. We put in place a phone line through which volunteers take essential grocery orders and relay the order to collaborating grocery stores, which in turn delivers the groceries to isolated individuals. While providing support to existing grocery store services this project offers a friendly remote shopping experience for the senior.

Our goals

The project has three main goals:

• To help reduce the infection rate among older adults by supporting seniors over the age of 70 in their self-isolation measures.
• To allow isolated seniors to have access to food throughout the pandemic.
• To document and share tools, approaches and “promising practices” to support action in other locales.