Since 2018, Salvation Army Major Sean Furey has played a vital role in feeding the Sault’s hungry.
With a mix of paid staff and approximately 40 volunteers, Furey directs the Salvation Army Community and Family Services centre – commonly known as the Salvation Army Food Bank – on Elgin Street.
“If you have no food in your house, that's a crisis. We're serving more than 3,000 people a month now. And it's the same people. For many people, they have no resources. They have no money. They have no capacity to get a pair of winter boots or coats or food. So we do what we can to help people,” Furey told SooToday.
Apart from his food bank duties, Furey is also pastor of the local Salvation Army church on John Street.
“I do what I do because it’s what Jesus tells us to do. I’m a Christian. Jesus says to feed the hungry so I feed the hungry," Furey said.
The food bank specializes in food recovery.
They recover thousands of pounds of food every year in partnership with Metro and No Frills and they also get pizza from Little Caesars.
"It’s food that has come close to its best before date, not the expiry date. It all used to go straight to the landfill but we have a program where we reclaim all of that before it gets thrown out and we turn it into thousands of meals a year,” Furey said.
That reclaimed food is perfectly good for consumption, he stated.
“There’s not a thing wrong with any of it. It’s just that it has an arbitrary best before date on it. Little Caesars pizzas can only sit there for 30 minutes. At minute 31 they go in the fridge.
"If chicken breast at Metro reaches its best before date that chicken has to come off the shelf and go in the freezer but there's nothing wrong with it. You could have bought it. You could have bought it as they were putting it in the freezer. So there's nothing wrong with it. It's all perfectly fine food.”
Clients can show up at the Salvation Army food bank on Elgin between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. or from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Thursday and pick up a meal at the door.
The food bank serves 240 people on an average day.
“I remember when we first started this we were reclaiming and serving 15,000 pounds of food a month, which is 180,000 pounds a year. But I think right now we're probably closer to 250,000 pounds. We've moved literally millions of pounds of food through this building.
"And I'm not exaggerating. We’ve literally moved millions of pounds. The highest daily number of clients we had was the last Thursday of August in 2022 and we served 401 people that day,” Furey said.
He is also pleased with a local Salvation Army program, operated by volunteer delivery drivers, that provides meals for elderly shut-ins.
“We now have a mobile food bank for seniors. And we also do it for people who have some mobility issues. So, if you're in a wheelchair, we'll help you out. In June, we will have delivered 10,000 hampers to seniors and shut-ins.”
Furey has had a life of interesting twists and turns.
Born in the small town of Riverhead in Newfoundland and Labrador, Furey went to Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s to study nursing.
“In my last semester doing my bachelor's degree a truck collided into my car. I broke both my arms, both my legs, my back, both my wrists. It was 17 weeks before I was able to walk. So I never officially got the education. I don't have any letters after my name to say that I actually graduated with a bachelor's degree in nursing,” Furey said.
He instead went to work as a registered practical nurse and also ran his own carpentry business.
“In 1999 I started volunteering for the Salvation Army. I had married a woman from the Salvation Army so I just got involved in volunteering and really enjoyed it.”
Since then, Furey has never looked back, working for the organization as a pastor and food bank director.
“One day the divisional commander said to me ‘have you ever considered joining the Salvation Army as an officer?’”
Furey said he carefully considered that for a year.
“It's a big commitment. You're not just making a decision to take a job. It's a lifestyle. You're taking on a new life. You're taking on a major commitment. So after much consideration I realized this is where God was leading me, into full-time service.”
After attending the Salvation Army's College for Officer Training, Furey assisted flight passengers in need of accommodations after they were rerouted to Newfoundland and Labrador during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington.
Posted later to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Furey helped people in need of assistance after parts of Atlantic Canada were affected by Hurricane Juan in 2003.
After serving as a Salvation Army pastor and food bank director in Elliot Lake, Furey and his wife Marilyn moved to the Sault in 2018.
“The Salvation Army is something like the military. I’m like the officer in charge. And so you're responsible for everything from finance to property management, to preaching, you name it. In some cases, it's peeling potatoes. It all depends where the need is. And I’ve peeled a lot of potatoes over the years,” Furey said.
Furey said that Christian compassion toward the food bank’s clients has not only fed them but has also - in some cases - transformed their lives to ones of faith and hope.
The food bank holds a church service within its Elgin Street walls every Friday.
“This is not just about meeting people’s physical needs and feeding them. The way that some of them have transformed over the past five or six years, especially through the pandemic, has been interesting to watch. People who would never have anything to do with the church, people who were rude and angry and depressed, have gone through a transformational change,” Furey said.
As a pastor and charity worker, he wants to help make people’s lives fuller and richer.
“In every exchange that I have with people, I want them to go away richer than where they started. And that includes giving them food, encouraging them, uplifting them, teaching them or even just helping them smile.”