About Us
About Us
Contact Us
Please reach out if you have any questions about the work we do or the way you could get involved! Shoot us a call or an email, or fill out the form on the right and we’ll get back to you.
We are at 1439 Ste. Catherine W, every Monday to Wednesday from 10am to 4pm.
(514) 843-3996
Our Food Dream
We imagine a shared space for community integration, interaction, learning and engagement centered around food sovereignty in Peter McGill, Montreal. We imagine Churches, Community Organizations and Community Members engaging with others in their neighborhood. We envision a movement starting with good food as the central heartbeat of the neighborhood, creating a space for interaction and connection and for telling the story of the neighborhood. We dream of community members, organizations and churches providing solutions for themselves instead of relying on outside corporations. We envision a central ground for integration of newcomers, with community serving community. We dream of good food as a catalyst for community development around food, culture, security, health and economics.
But here at Innovation Assistance, we don’t think “food security,” or having enough calories, is enough. We dream of a world in which there is food autonomy, food sovereignty, and food justice.
We define “healthy” food as food that meets at least two of the following criteria:
Nutritionally valuable
Locally grown/produced
Organic or grown/produced with minimal additives
Culturally significant or emotionally nourishing (e.g. comfort foods)
Varied (e.g. not just the same three items!)
National conversations about food focus on “food security,” which tends to focus on counting the number of calories a healthy adult needs. Food banks, which have been around in Canada only since the 1980s, are part of this “security” conversation, although they are by no means the answer to the problem of hunger.
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We follow the definition offered by the Regroupement de cuisines collectives du Québec, which says that food autonomy is “the access any time and in the long term” to food at a reasonable cost, accompanied by “the power to choose, in dignity and by having access to clear and reliable information, a healthy diet.” Food autonomy is the result of collective action for the welfare of a whole community, including its future members.
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We follow the definition offered by Linda Black Elk, which says that food sovereignty means “you know and understand where your food comes from...from seed to plate...and you can make decisions about all aspects of the food you consume.” Linda Black Elk specifically talks about Indigenous food sovereignty, which is an outgrowth of the work done by Via Campesina, a global organisation of peasant farmers that coined “food sovereignty” as a phrase in 1996.
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Just food means:
good quality food that is affordable for you and easy for you to access; food you know how to prepare, know how to harvest, know where it comes from;
food you want to eat, whether that’s food that meets your specific dietary needs, food that reminds you of your childhood, food that satisfies your taste buds, or food that makes you feel good;
food that is produced in a way that is respectful to the soil, to plants, and to the humans, animals, and insects who take care of both;
food you get a say in: food you choose, whether based on taste or health concerns or the way its producers are treated.
Meet the Team
The whole Innovation Youth team is crucial to making sure everything at Innovation Assistance happens. Here’s the whole team and their larger roles as well as what they do at IA!
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Micah is the coordinator of Innovation Assistance, which means both her role at the organization and in food security is making sure IA runs smoothly.
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Christa is the coordinator of Innovation Youth, this means she oversees all of our programs. At Innovation Assistance, she coordinates our food transformation (so basically she masterminds all of our catering and food waste reduction!)
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Carole is our administrative mastermind and translator both here at IA and at our larger organization. We love Carole!!
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JD splits his time at Innovation Youth between Connections and Innovation Assistance. He helps with job placements for Connections students, runs cooking sessions with them, and picks up any balls that get dropped at the IA markets!
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Rebecca is the Floor Manager at IA, which means she's responsible for the tetris of putting away all of our boxes of food, connecting with members, inventory, and much more!
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Daniel is the coordinator of the Connections program at Innovation Youth. He is also a huge part of IA with his help in the kitchen and running cash at the market.
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Katya is an environmental educator in our urban agriculture program and is a crucial and bubbly presence at all of our solidarity markets!
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Although Jessica has been exclusively on the IA team in the past, she's now also an environmental educator with our urban agriculature program. These days at IA, you can find her at a kitchen slot and at the market!
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Mai is our children's library technician. At IA, you can find her teaching a rowdy group of kids how to cook, helping with advocacy, or helping make the market happen!
Innovation Youth
The mission and vision of Innovation Youth is to offer a community space for youth and families living in or frequently visiting downtown, opening up the possibilities of integration into academic, professional, and social life. We seek to create space for youth and families to flourish.
Other Programs of Innovation Youth
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The children’s community library exists to help children, youth, and families thrive in downtown Montreal through promoting literature, helping children improve their french-speaking skills, and other various activities.
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The Connections program works with a group of youth who are looking to move forward towards the next step in their lives, may it be academically or by transitioning into the workforce.
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We desire to engage community members through providing accessible green spaces, education around environmental and urban agriculture issues, and opportunities for engagement through our garden volunteering.
