MBiz | December 2020

Downtown Family Foods owners Darcey Schmidt and Kevin Schmidt. Photos by Darcy Finley

“It makes us feel good to know that people are being helped. As nice as it is to make money, you have to help people out too.”

CLASS ACTS Kevin Schmidt and his business partners were already involved in food security programs when the pandemic hit. Schmidt is the co-owner of Downtown Family Foods, an independent grocery store on Donald Street, along with his wife Darcey and brother-in-law Ryan Gingras. Two years ago, they teamed-up with the Walter & Maria Schroeder Foundation (schroederfoundation.org) to provide weekly hampers to help students at St. John’s High School who didn’t have enough food at home. Students receive $30 worth of groceries as part of the program, which has grown from an initial 50 students to 150. Family Foods provides all the items and distribution is handled by outreach workers with the foundation. It also now supplies food items for a cafeteria program the Schroeder’s foundation created to provide 200 free and subsidized meals to students at the school each day. “For those kids it’s been such a blessing,” Schmidt says. “It might be the only thing that kid has had all day. The great thing is not only are those kids more attentive during the day, everyone’s grades have also improved. It’s been a real win-win for the kids.” More recently, Family Foods teamed up with the Manitoba Métis Federation to help members who were struggling during the pandemic, including a large number of elderly people. They

provided more than 500 food hampers at cost to MMF members early on in the pandemic and planned to resume the initiative this winter. “My wife and I have always been the type to try and help people,” Schmidt says. “It makes us feel good to know that people are being helped. As nice as it is to make money, you have to help people out too.” Like most grocers, Family Foods has experienced a huge boom in business during the pandemic, as consumer spending shifted away from restaurants and turned to grocery stores. Schmidt estimates overall business grew by 50% at one point, and online orders have more than quadrupled, since many people are reluctant to shop in-person. Still, the changes were a mixed blessing for the store’s owners. They lost nearly a third of their staff, many of whom are students who worried they might contract the coronavirus and pass it on to vulnerable family members. They also had to reduce their hours of operation at one point just to keep their shelves stocked. And then there’s the added time and expense of sanitizing high-contact surfaces every day, and making sure everyone who enters the store or makes a delivery follows the proper protocols as dictated by provincial health officials. “It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure,” Schmidt says. “We’re always doing our best to make sure everyone follows the rules and keeps everyone around them safe.” CONTINUED >>

WINTER 2020

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