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MEMORY LANE: Longtime volunteers fill bellies and enrich lives

Three Wednesday mornings every month, Victor Smith arrives at North Shore Neighbourhood House for his Food Bank shift. He has volunteered there since he arrived in North Vancouver in 2001, in his 75th year.
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Three Wednesday mornings every month, Victor Smith arrives at North Shore Neighbourhood House for his Food Bank shift.

He has volunteered there since he arrived in North Vancouver in 2001, in his 75th year.

Victor came back to Canada after living a seafaring life in the British Virgin Islands. His plan was to find a sailboat he could live aboard. “I still look,” he says, “not every morning, but frequently.” The boat would have to be special, for Victor had owned Finisterre, a gold plated name in boating lore.

Ontario born, vintage 1926, Victor was in his teens when he built a sailboat. He hoisted the sails he made on his mother’s sewing machine and launched his craft on the Humber River. Going downstream went well. By the time he made his way back upstream, Victor was on his way to becoming a sailor.

He grew up to be a management consultant for enterprises like the Florida Keys Electric Cooperative and Greenbelt Consumer Co-op in Maryland, where he found Finisterre. Among other glories, Finisterre won the Newport – Bermuda race in 1956, 1958 and 1960 for Carleton Mitchell, her original owner, a record that stands today.

Victor was 45, married with two children in high school and one at university, when he was asked a life changing question: How much time do you spend with your family?

His response was to go sailing. The family, minus the university student, embarked on a cruise through the Caribbean aboard Finisterre. The idyll came to an end 18 months later when the two younger children entered university, and Mrs. Smith opted for a dry land life.

Victor stayed on in Tortola, racing and chartering Finisterre. Eventually, he formed a company producing specialized computers and software for clients throughout the islands. It was smooth sailing until Victor made the decision to say goodbye to Finisterre and begin a new season of his life.

“I was looking for something to do and found the Food Bank,” he says. “I started like we all do, flattening cardboard boxes, and worked my way up. Now I greet people when they arrive and see them off after they finish shopping.”

Why the Food Bank and why stick with it all this time?

“Life has been good to me. The least I can do is give back. It’s purely selfish. I get so much pleasure helping people fix at least one of their problems. Food is basic. It brings us together.”

Food drew fellow volunteer and site co-ordinator Scott Tennant to the Food Bank too. “I was looking for a starting point and thought of food,” he says. “Where can I help that involves food, especially locally grown food? It was the Food Bank.”

The need is great. Seniors’ poverty is highest in B.C. Children comprise more than 45 per cent of B.C. Food Bank members.

“We see a lot of single mothers and we see a lot of seniors, especially at the end of the month when the money runs out. When you’re on a fixed income, it can be hard times here.

Success to me is fewer members. It means they are succeeding in this world. Whatever way we can help, that’s what we’re looking for. The most important thing is keeping it human.”

Every part of this volunteer-managed operation, and model for the Vancouver Food Bank network, is designed with the human factor in mind. Food supplies come first, supported by an expanding array of community programs and partnerships co-ordinated by North Shore Neighbourhood House, all designed to inform and assist Food Bank members.

The produce is truly local. It comes from the garden at Neighbourhood House and from the Loutet Farm community garden. The Union Protein Project contributes cans of salmon and jars of peanut butter.

“Andreas Restaurant brings us soup for the hospitality area,” says Scott. “Some members don’t come to shop. They come to have a coffee and a snack, and visit with their friends.”

Everyone at the Food Bank, members and volunteers, brings something unique. Victor brings the human touch.

Sitting alongside Victor at the Food Bank is a powerful experience. Everyone leaving with their groceries receives his full attention. It doesn’t sound like much, just a few moments of attention, or a bowl of soup with a buddy, but for some members, the three days every month the Food Bank is open provides their only social connection. 

Victor’s life is full. He keeps in touch with family via Skype. He’s a writer with three books on the go, a poet and a painter. He has rebuilt the bicycles he rides around Stanley Park. He’s a man who raced sports cars, who built more than 50 computers. Still, for a 92-year-old single man, social connections are rare. The Food Bank is a safe place, with good company. It is a gift.

“My kids are grown up. And I’ve watched kids grow up here at the Food Bank,” says Victor Smith. “We’re enriching each other's lives here.”

Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or email her at lander1@shaw.ca.