Carol VandenEngel and Glenn Green are paddling across Canada to help you eat your vegetables.

The pair are promoting the food security charity Loving Spoonful by canoeing from Vancouver to their hometown of Kingston, Ont. Their journey included a pit stop in Nelson earlier this week.

Green said Loving Spoonful, which is also based in Kingston, teaches how to grow and harvest food as well as prepare meals.

鈥淚n Kingston and that area of Ontario, people don鈥檛 have access to healthy, fresh food,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hether it be mobility issues or it鈥檚 an illness that they have or lack of skills that aren鈥檛 present. Everyone should have the right to eat healthy food. It is expensive to eat healthy food, but by growing food, learning how to harvest the food and preparing meals from it, that鈥檚 a way to curb that.鈥�

Last year they paddled the first leg from Ottawa to Sydney, N.S., and started this year鈥檚 trip on May 5 with the hope they鈥檒l be done by October.

Their route sticks close to the Canada-U.S. border until Alberta where they begin moving north. Then in Manitoba they turn south once more on a route that eventually takes them across Lake Superior toward Ottawa and Kingston.

VandenEngel said they have been canoeing recreationally for 15-to-20 years, and that it made sense to get back in the water for what will be a journey of 8,515 kilometres.

鈥淲e really have a passion for the outdoors,鈥� said VandenEngel. 鈥淲e鈥檝e travelled abroad quite a bit and thought let鈥檚 see our own beautiful country and what better way from the canoe. We鈥檝e been canoeing and seeing the water ways and it鈥檚 spectacular.鈥�

To follow VandenEngel and Green鈥檚 journey or make a donation to Loving Spoonful, visit .

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tyler.harper@nelsonstar.com
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