Back in 2004, a coalition of food security organizations came to the conclusion that local food banks faced more and more difficulties in answering the growing needs of the Outaouais population in terms of food assistance. Following this realization, a special committee was created to find solutions. Its members studied the relevance and feasibility of creating a new local organization whose mission would be to actively fight again hunger by recovering food products and redistributing them freely to community organizations throughout Outaouais.

An outline of the local situation was developed in order to assess the adequacy of such an organization. At the time, the Ottawa Food Bank was already supplying 24 organizations in Outaouais, which represented 500 000 kilos of food on a yearly basis, for a total value of 1.2 million dollars. This essential assistance was reaching a little more than 6 000 people; yet, around 23 000 people actually lived under situations of food insecurity.

Moisson Outaouais was created in partnership with the Ottawa Food Bank following this assessment, in order to ensure continuity in delivering food products to local organizations. This partnership is what allows Moisson Outaouais to work towards its autonomy while making sure its members receive the support they need.

Since its creation, Moisson Outaouais has helped more than 19 500 people and it now works with 50 organizations. There is still a lot of work to do to better meet the demand. Our goal is to find better installations and hire more people to better and more efficiently recover and redistribute food products. That way, Moisson Outaouais will not only help more people but will also better respond to existing needs. Local people, but also community organizations, political actors and business leaders have shown their support to our organization these last few years. Our project will go on and prosper thanks to the demonstration from the local community that together, we can make the world a better place.