Collaboration and Connection: How Nicole Marinelli Helps Feed Waterloo Region and Communities Across Ontario

At The Food Bank of Waterloo Region, our staff work tirelessly behind the scenes every day—securing and processing donations, organizing fundraising events and campaigns, sorting and storing food, and delivering orders to the 54 organizations in the Community Food Assistance Network. They also support our volunteers and collaborate with Network partners, all with one clear goal: to ensure no one in our community goes hungry. 

One of our dedicated team members is Nicole Marinelli, who joined The Food Bank in 2018. She began her journey in partnerships and now serves as our food procurement and distribution services manager. In this role, Nicole builds and nurtures relationships with corporate donors to secure food donations—not just for The Food Bank, but also for food banks across southwestern Ontario through a unique program called Feed Collaboration. 

“I always say I have the best job at The Food Bank,” Nicole shares. “I get to talk to a lot of people about what their needs are and then I get to help feed communities. People and food. What’s better than those two things?” 

Feed Collaboration is an initiative led by Feed Ontario in partnership with The Food Bank of Waterloo Region. It provides food producers—such as farmers, greenhouses, hydroponic growers, processors, manufacturers, and distributors—with a single, convenient channel to donate surplus and imperfect food to food banks across southwestern Ontario. 

These donations might include: 

• Mislabelled products 
• Perfectly good food nearing or past its best-before date 
• Items that don’t meet standard colour or size requirements 

“We don’t care if the carrots are too small,” Nicole says. “We don’t care if the cheese is too long. As long as the nutritional information and ingredient list are there, and we know who the manufacturer is, we can accept it. What it really comes down to is making sure that good food isn’t wasted. We’re recovering that food and redistributing it across our Network and to other food banks in southwestern Ontario.”

Nicole Marinelli in The Food Bank’s warehouse.

Donating to Feed Collaboration is simple. Food producers reach out to Nicole—and she handles the rest. 

Nicole works with our transportation team to arrange pick-up in our refrigerated trucks, keeping food donations fresh and safe. Once the food arrives, it’s stored in our 31,000-square-foot distribution centre, which is equipped to manage large quantities of food. From there, Nicole works with our operations and transportation teams to distribute the food to participating food banks and food assistance providers across southwestern Ontario, based on their capacity to accept the donation and the needs of the people they support. This centralized, efficient system ensures no food is wasted, and every donation reaches someone facing hunger. 

“Not all food banks have the transportation or storage capacity to accept large donations,” Nicole explains. “We do. We have the trucks and the storage capacity to be able to accept those donations. Food banks in Feed Collaboration can then choose what products they need and have capacity for.” 

Feed Collaboration not only streamlines the donation process—making it easier for food producers to support multiple food banks—but also provides food banks, and the people they serve with a wider variety of food. Thanks to Feed Collaboration, food banks aren’t limited to what’s available locally.  A rural food bank can receive granola bars from a manufacturer in a big city, while an urban food bank can benefit from fresh apples grown on an Ontario farm hours away. With Feed Collaboration, people experiencing food insecurity across the province can access the full range of what Ontario food producers have to offer. 

For Nicole, this work is about more than just logistics—it’s about the people she meets and the connections she builds. 

“I love collaboration,” she says. “I love people. I love that I get to go to places and just listen… find out what people are needing, what their wants are, and get to know them. And then I get to go find a donor who might fit that. Feed Collaboration is the right program for me because I love to collaborate, and I believe in the value of teamwork and sharing.” 

One thing Nicole wants food producers to know is that every donation matters. 

“I streamline the process and make it as easy as possible,” she says. “And no donation is too small. Today, it might be a skid or a pallet of a product but that’s okay because we can still use it. Tomorrow, that might turn into something much larger. We also take a variety of products.” 

Together, we can ensure good food never goes to waste—and always finds its way to someone who needs it. 

If you’re a food producer interested in donating surplus or imperfect food, email Nicole Marinelli at nicolem@thefoodbank.ca.