Annual Report 2025
Reflecting on last year’s progress while celebrating 40 years of nourishing transformation
A Message from Leadership
Dear Community,
As we mark our 40th year, we are reflecting on how far we have come and continuing to reimagine what is still possible.
What began as a temporary emergency food response in the 1980s has grown into something much more. Today, The Depot is a community-driven space where people can access food with dignity, build and share skills, connect with others, and contribute to a stronger, more resilient community.
While responding to urgent needs remains essential, we know that food insecurity is rooted in broader systems. Our role is to hold both realities at once: showing up for community members who need support today, while working alongside partners to address the conditions that make that need so persistent.
In the past year, we have continued to deepen this approach. We introduced a Director of Strategic Initiatives to help advance our long-term goals and strengthen partnerships. We also invested more resources than ever to improve access to food across our community.
We also launched our Community Contribution Model across our two largest programs — the Marché Depot and Resto Depot — and have since integrated it across nearly all of our programs. This approach recognizes that food insecurity exists along a spectrum, where people can contribute what they can, when they can, and receive support when they need it.
Today, 1 in 5 Montrealers experience food insecurity — an urgent reality that continues to push us to adapt and innovate.
We are deeply grateful to our staff, volunteers, partners, and supporters who make this work possible. We also extend our sincere thanks to Tasha Lackman for her leadership and contributions over the past four years.
At The Depot, we believe that food fuels solidarity. We see its power every day to bring people together and strengthen community. We invite you to join us in building a more nourishing and connected community where access to healthy food is a reality for all.
Jennifer Brennan
Interim Co-Executive Director
Marguerite Kinfack
Interim Co-Executive Director
Susan Kessler
Board Chair
From left to right: Jennifer Brennan, Susan Kessler, and Margeurite Kinfack
Imagining Things Differently
The Evolution of The Depot
Over the past 40 years, our work has evolved in response to what we’ve learned alongside the community. This evolution has shaped not only how we approach food access, but also how we build spaces for connection and work toward long-term solutions to food insecurity.
Imagining Something Better: The Evolution of The Depot
Over the past decade, The Depot has grown and changed, but at its core, it remains a commitment to imagining things differently.
Reimagining Food Access
How food is accessed matters.
The Depot began in 1986 as a temporary emergency response to rising food insecurity in NDG. At the time, we operated out of church basements, redistributing donated food of varying quality to reach as many people as possible. It was a model shaped by urgency, and we were doing our best with the limited resources we had.
Over time, we began asking deeper questions: What does it really mean to access food with dignity? How can people have more choice, consistency, and agency in how they access food? And how can we provide greater access to fresh, nourishing food? These questions led us to move beyond a single point of service, our food bank. In 2015, we introduced satellite Good Food Markets, bringing fresh produce to different corners of NDG during the growing season.
At the same time, we started rethinking the food bank itself. As we learned and adapted, it evolved into what is now the Marché Depot — a space that offers a consistent selection of staple foods, fresh produce, and culturally diverse items that reflect the needs and preferences of our community.
Explore the stories behind the transformation
The Story Behind The Resto Depot Community Meal
Discover how The Depot’s community meal program evolved from a small church basement kitchen into the Resto Depot — a welcoming space where food, dignity, and community come together.
A Community Partnership That Changed Access to Fresh Food in NDG
What if food banks had dedicated funding to purchase fresh food? Our partnership with MRUC has completely changed The Depot’s food access programs.
Reimagining Community
Food is just the beginning.
While food is essential to respond to hunger, we’ve learned that it’s only the beginning. Through our work, we’ve seen that food insecurity is often experienced alongside isolation, and that many people are also looking for opportunities to connect, contribute, and feel a sense of belonging.
In 2015, The Depot merged with Boîte à Lunch and Action Communiterre, marking an important shift in our work — beyond providing food, we began creating community spaces centred around cooking workshops and garden activities. These became spaces for skills and knowledge to be shared, cultures to be celebrated, and relationships to be built.
These spaces also highlighted the rich knowledge within our community. We began creating more room for participants to share recipes, co-facilitate workshops, and help shape the programs themselves. And this continues to evolve, as we learn how to build programs with participants, not just for them.
Discover the stories of community members who are shaping these spaces every day
Shaped by Community: Participant-Led Programming at The Depot
At The Depot, some of our most meaningful programs are participant-led, and have have grown from creating space for participants share what they already carry with them — their knowledge, traditions, and lived experiences.
One Year In: Reflections on The Community Contribution Model
Just over a year ago, The Depot introduced a Community Contribution Model across many of our programs. For the first time in nearly 40 years, participants were being asked to contribute financially toward services through a sliding-scale model that invites people to contribute according to their means, including $0 when needed.
Sharing Abundance
How Gardeners are Giving Back at our Fielding Garden. At The Depot, we believe food is more than fuel. It’s connection, care, and community.
Reimagining the Solution
Emergency support is essential — but not enough.
Over 40 years, one thing has become clear: food insecurity cannot be solved through charity alone. We believe that access to food is a basic human right and so it has to be supported by strong public systems and policies that ensure people have enough income. Without addressing these root causes, the need for emergency food support will continue to grow.
At The Depot, our work has evolved to bridge both realities. We continue to respond to the growing food needs we see in the community, while working toward longer-term change through advocacy and systems-level efforts locally, regionally, and provincially.
This is long-term work, and we are investing in it — by dedicating staff, embedding it in our strategic plan, and building strong partnerships. Alongside community members, partners, and networks, we are working toward changes that strengthen public systems and improve incomes, recognizing that food insecurity is, at its root, an income issue.
Learn more about the collective efforts driving systems change:
How Community Organizations Across Quebec Are Fighting Food Insecurity Together
Food insecurity is complex, and the systems that cause it are deeply entrenched. Changing them will require persistence, coordination, and collective effort.
Building Hope Through Community Organizing
At the Social Justice Committee, hope is not something people wait for. It’s something we build together.
Our Impact
In 2025
The Depot offered programs that reached more than 9,000 community members.
Through our food bank, community meals, snack program, and mobile markets, we created multiple ways for people to access food, reaching different corners of the neighbourhood and meeting different needs.
69% of participants shared that they’re eating more fruits and vegetables thanks to The Depot’s programs.
“[The Depot’s programs] helped me focus on making healthier choices […] and [gave me] more interest in cooking homemade meals.”
people accessed essential groceries through the Marché Depot, representing 21,000+ visits (up from 20,000+ last year)
nutritious meals were served weekly at the Resto Depot
snacks and meals were distributed to 9 local organizations and camps (nearly double the amount last year)
mobile markets organized outdoors in 4 sectors of NDG and indoors in 5 HLMs
Through our cooking workshops and garden sessions, we create spaces where people can share skills, connect with others, and strengthen their sense of well-being.
90% of participants feel a sense of belonging at The Depot.
88% of participants reported improvements in their overall health & well-being
collective garden sessions held for adults and families
cooking and gardening workshops hosted, reaching 900+ youth
Through volunteering and advocacy, community members are playing an active role in supporting programming and driving change.
42% of participants are more confident speaking up about poverty or other issues that affect them or their community.
“[The Depot’s programs] put things into perspective for me: I am not alone. Many people run into health challenges and still manage to be on the “helping others” side of things, not only on the receiving end! [I realized] that helping others is the absolute best way for me to help myself heal.”
volunteer hours contributed by 350+ volunteers
partner organizations participated in the Regional Advocacy Network led by The Depot
learn more about our programs
Financials
Revenue Breakdown
Public and private foundations
Government
Self-generated
Individuals and corporations
Budget by Impact Area
Respond to immediate needs
Support community building and long term health
Work on dismantling the structural barriers that create food insecurity
Administration
Thank you for being a part of our circle of care
We are deeply grateful for our incredible community of supporters who show up in deeply meaningful ways, helping us meet rising needs with care while continuing to reimagine, innovate, and deepen our impact. Together, we are building a thriving and connected community where access to food is realized for all.
Take big steps forward with The Depot
Food is a right. Together, we can make it a reality for all.