OSHaRE (Photo by Nathan Shubert)
OSHaRE is hoping the demand for service evens out in the new year.
Looking back on 2025, Executive Director Colleen Trask-Seaman says it was a year of change, growth and being busy.
“The reality is that we have continued to see increased need in our community. We have went from 212,000 meals in 2024 to over 300,000 meals in 2025, but we have seen the incredible generosity and resilience of our community who stepped up to help us to meet that need every step of the way through our volunteers, through donations, through just the community caring about their neighbours and making sure that they wanted to see them be fed,” says Trask-Seaman.
One of the highlights from the past year for Trask-Seaman was celebrating a 93-year-old’s birthday at OSHaRE.
“Watching guests open their box to see their own little birthday cake with a happy birthday sign on it realizing that someone in the community cared enough to throw them a birthday party, I loved that,” says Trask-Seaman.
She also thanked everyone who participated in the annual fundraising walk.
“We had our biggest turnout ever, most donations ever and just amazing to watch the community come together and say that they support what we do. Sometimes the work that we do can feel overwhelming especially with the increased need, but seeing everyone show up that day and walk with us, just inspiring to see that,” says Trask-Seaman.
At the end of last year, Trask-Seaman hoped OSHaRE would catch its breath from the spike in demand in 2024, she says they were not able to take that respite in 2025.
“The reality is we are always looking at ways we can do what we do better and one of the things is our Family Program, so developing that Family Space, seeing that we need to increase our food rescue and so looking ahead at how we can do that. I think the reality is that we were hoping that we would see the need kind of level out and obviously we haven’t seen that and that is our hope for 2026,” says Trask-Seaman. “We believe that everyone has the right to food and so I hope for a day where OSHaRE doesn’t have to provide. I don’t think we are going to see that soon, but I do hope that we find ways that families can get more resources so that they don’t have to come to OSHaRE.”
Looking ahead to the new year, she says people can expect OSHaRE to continue supporting the community.
“We are going to continue to partner, we are going to continue to push for collaboration and to share what we have, whether it’s our space, whether it’s our food, whether it’s our volunteer power. We have been able to go help other agencies with fundraising because our volunteers step up with us to go support. We are excited to see what we can do with getting more free food into this area because we realize that is really important for the smaller food banks as well as for our own sustainability as we are all seeing increased need,” says Trask-Seaman.