A well-loved community cupboard in Steveston, meant to help those with food insecurity, has been closed.
The Steveston Community Cupboard – outside the village’s Best of British Store on First Avenue and Chatham Street – was spotted with its doors tied shut and a "closed" sign hanging from it as of Sept. 9.
Best of British co-owner Lenny Entwistle is one of the good Samaritans who keeps an eye on the bright red box, and has found it being misused and abused to the point of frustration.
The community food cupboard was initially a well-intentioned project started by a student from the McMath secondary Incentive Program who came to her in the spring of 2021 with the idea of placing the pop-up miniature food bank outside Entwistle’s store.
"The bottom line is it's being misused in lots of ways and it's just so much work ... it's crazy," said Entwistle.
The cupboard is in an "absolutely filthy" state with spilled food, items that are half-opened and sticky shelves, she explained.
Half a bottle of salad dressing, an almost empty box of cereal and canned food that expired five years ago are only some of the items that have been placed in the cupboard.
Entwistle told the Richmond News people have started to place shoes, hats, clothing and even underwear in the cupboard as well.
"Expired food needs to be opened up, composted and cleaned out and items that aren't food need time to be packaged up and taken to the thrift shop, there's no room for that in the cupboard," she said.
"It's almost like we need someone there 24/7 just to monitor what's going in."
And this is in addition to ongoing cases of people clearing out the cupboard when kind donors place fresh cans of non-perishable foods in one go, she added.
"I feel bad for the people donating, thinking they're helping people. The cupboard was a good idea, there's got to be a lot of people that are in need, but others are just abusing it now."
Entwistle is advising all food donations to be made to the food bank for now.
"I don't want to take the cupboard down just yet, maybe we can find a solution."
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