One bus you can't miss: North End Grocery Shuttle gets neighbourhood-themed makeover
Colourful bus carries dozens of residents who live in 'food desert' to grocery stores
A new mural is making it hard to miss a bus that regularly drives through Winnipeg's North End.
Every Thursday the North End grocery shuttle makes its rounds, taking a couple dozen people to do their weekly shopping at some of the bigger grocery stores in the city.
Up until last month it looked like any other school bus. But thanks to a local artist, that's no longer the case.
Peatr Thomas was hired to paint a mural on the bus in order to make it more reflective of the neighbourhood it drives through.
The mural is "basically the streets of the North End, split by the red river. And an eagle, I guess symbolizing the bus itself carrying these people. Eagles in the seven teachings represent love so you can see that this is coming from, and is for, a place of love."
Laurence Rosenberg and his wife have been funding and driving the grocery shuttle since 2013 as a way to help people in the North End gain better access to healthier foods.
"We wanted to find something we could do to be more involved in a community and I grew up in the North End. We were actually watching the news one evening and it had a story on a young fellow who would do this in a minivan for three people and he couldn't do it anymore."
Within a year of seeing that news story, Rosenberg had purchased a bus and became fully licenced to operate it.
He said it took some convincing — and some assurance that he wasn't joking about buying a bus — but eventually Melissa McDonald, a coordinator with the North End Food Security Network, and the rest of her team hopped on board.
McDonald and her group, who work under the umbrella of the North End Community Renewal Corporation, now operate the grocery shuttle.
Watch | Take a ride on the North End grocery shuttle:
For McDonald, it couldn't have come at a better time. The original shuttle could only take a few passengers and the need was much greater than that.
She said they now have between 20 and 25 people on the bus each week, due to a lack of options for healthy groceries in the neighbourhood.
"It's basically a food desert in the North End. There's a bunch of convenience stores everywhere, but eating chips from a corner store is not the greatest at all. We just want people to get affordable, healthy foods in their stomachs."
More than a trip to the grocery store
Helen Carrier has been taking the shuttle for over a year, and she said it's become the highlight of her week.
"Most of us look forward to Thursdays, I know I do. We don't get out much in the winter months, so this is not just a shopping trip, it's a social trip."
Carrier said she never misses the weekly trip. The fact that the bus comes around to her apartment building is one of the reasons she's decided to stay there for another year.
If there's any way I can help out bettering anyone's lives, I'm willing to do that. - Peatr Thomas
Carrier said the weekly trip on the grocery shuttle is her only chance to get to the store without relying on family members to drive her. She said it gives her a sense of independence without breaking the bank on taxi fares.
"This way, I don't have to bother anyone. I make my list, I wait for Thursday, I know [Rosenberg] is coming. There's no worries," said Carrier. "I hope it never stops. Otherwise I don't know what I would do. I really don't."
Adding art to the bus
Rosenberg said the mural was something he'd been thinking about adding to the bus for a long time
"We wanted to become really inclusive of the North End and one of the things [Melissa and I] were working on was finding a local Indigenous artist to paint the outside of the bus," said Rosenberg.
They put out a call for artists on social media and eventually came across Thomas. Rosenberg said they knew right away that he was the right fit, so they offered him the job.
For Thomas, the choice to take on the project was also an easy one. He said when Rosenberg explained what the shuttle was for, he was all in.
"You say anything North End and I'll probably be there," said Thomas. "I have my own childhood history in the North End so I've seen first hand what the struggles are like. If there's any way I can help out bettering anyone's lives, I'm willing to do that."
Thomas said he spent two years of his childhood attending a school on Flora Avenue. He said the tops of the houses he painted in the mural are meant to be the houses on that street.
He said he hopes people are able to see their own community reflected in the bus as it drives by.
Mayor funds bus art after ride-along
The new mural upgrade for the bus was funded directly from the Mayor's office. After a ride-along in the summer, Winnipeg mayor Brian Bowman said he wanted to help keep the shuttle going in any way he could.
He provided Rosenberg and the grocery shuttle team with $5,000 from his office's Civic Initiative Fund — meant to offer financial support to groups and individuals doing work that benefits their communities.
"I was stunned that they were footing the bill for this: that they bought the bus and were donating their time and they were putting forward the money for gas," said Bowman.
"The money was not only to help them financially to provide the service, but also just to let them know, and let other community members know, that the work that they're doing, the volunteer efforts, make a difference and they are so deeply appreciated by the City of Winnipeg."