Seeds of Change Surrey

Our Story

Seeds of Change Surrey (SOCS) is a network of community partners working together to build a resilient, sustainable, and socially just food system where everyone has dignified access to affordable, culturally preferable, nutritious, and safe food.

We bring together non-profits, government, health, education, grassroots organizations, community members, and people with lived and living experience to address the complex, systemic barriers that shape food insecurity in Surrey. Our work is grounded in food justice, decolonization, and the belief that communities must have the agency to influence the systems that affect their lives.

How We Began

SOCS was born in 2015, when a group of community stakeholders came together through a Collective Impact workshop led by BC Healthy Communities and Innoweave. The group recognized that food insecurity in Surrey is not simply a matter of missing services—it is a systemic inequity that requires long-term, cross-sector collaboration.

With early support from a BC Healthy Communities coach and a PlanH Growing Impact grant, the network spent its early years building relationships, defining intervention points, and co-creating a Theory of Change rooted in four drivers of food security:

Availability, Access, Income, and Food Literacy.

These early seeds laid the foundation for a growing, community-led movement.

Growth and Learning

From 2016–2019, SOCS deepened its partnerships, launched working groups, trialled community-driven initiatives, and supported neighbourhood-led engagement. This period was defined by experimentation, learning, and building shared capacity across organizations and communities.

As the network matured, SOCS increasingly focused on addressing the root causes of food insecurity and centered efforts on equity, anti-racism and Indigenous food sovereignty, and lived and living experience leadership, strengthening its commitment to food justice.

Community Response During COVID-19

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, members of the Seeds of Change Surrey network mobilized quickly to support residents facing new and intensified barriers to food access. Seniors, vulnerable population groups, and families isolating at home were struggling to obtain food safely, while social assistance organizations across Surrey saw demand for their services surge.

Through SOCS’ existing relationships, partners coordinated efforts to identify priority needs and extend the reach of emergency food programs. SOCS implemented the SOX BOX initiative for vulnerable residents. This program worked alongside existing food banks and recovery programs, which rescued and redistributed donated food throughout the network.

Although short-term due to limited funding, these collaborative efforts demonstrated the strength of Surrey’s community food network and reinforced the importance of coordinated, systems-level work during times of crisis.

Establishment of the Black, African, and Caribbean (BAC) Advisory Committee

The group began in 2022 through a community-led engagement process funded by the Vancouver Foundation and Plan H through Seeds of Change Surrey (SOCS). SOCS partnered with UBC Land and Food Systems to partake in equity training for SOCS partners.

Recognizing gaps in representation and the disproportionate impacts of systemic racism on food security, the BAC Advisory was created to ensure the experiences, leadership, and priorities of Black, African, and Caribbean residents shape food equity work in Surrey. 

The City of Surrey is home to British Columbia’s largest self-identifying Black population, with 12,870 Black residents (Statistics Canada, 2021). Across Canada, Black households are 3.56 times more likely to experience food insecurity compared to white households (Community Health Survey Report 2005-2014). This disparity reflects systemic racism, economic inequity, colonial food systems, and limited access to culturally preferable, dignified food options. The BAC Advisory Committee exists to confront these inequities through community leadership and systems-level transformation for long-term structural and systemic change.

The Surrey Black, African, and Caribbean (BAC) Advisory Committee is a Black-led network composed of individuals and multi-organizational representatives of BAC descent. Rooted in community autonomy, justice, and collective leadership, the BAC Advisory Committee centers Black knowledge, voices, culture, and lived/ living experience.

The BAC Advisory was formed to:

  • meaningfully engage Black, African, and Caribbean community members;
  • integrate culturally relevant food justice knowledge into SOCS’ work;
  • embed an Anti-Black Racism analysis into programming and decision-making;
  • strengthen the foundation for future policy work;
  • support organizations serving BAC communities in offering culturally safe programs.

The creation of the BAC Advisory marked a major step in rooting SOCS’s work more deeply in equity, justice, and community-led leadership. Since then, members have continued to guide and collaborate with SOCS and partner organizations on culturally relevant food access, community well-being, and systemic barriers impacting BAC communities.

Adapting to a Changing Context

The last few years have brought major shifts in Surrey’s food landscape. The pandemic, population growth, rising living costs, and ongoing policy changes created both challenges and opportunities.

During this time, SOCS adapted alongside partners who were responding to immediate community needs. While the work looked different, the network maintained its core relationships, continued to support food literacy and access initiatives, and upheld its commitment to collaborative, community-centered approaches.

In 2023, SOCS refreshed its Terms of Reference and realigned its structure to better meet the realities of Surrey’s current and adapting food system. This renewal strengthened our grounding in food justice, decolonization, and systems thinking, and clarified our role as a backbone that supports coordination, shared learning, and policy alignment.

SOCS’s current work is organized into three interconnected areas:

Food Access: Helping families access nourishing, culturally meaningful food while supporting confidence and connection.

Food Policy: Elevating community voices and working with decision-makers to embed food justice into policies that shape Surrey’s future.

Food Systems Resilience: Strengthening Surrey’s ability to adapt to food system disruptions through collaboration, preparedness, and community capacity.