Dwindling donations and increasing demand straining food banks
Our Town Food Bank in Tottenham is struggling to keep its supply up with the rising need.
"We are seeing numbers that we've never seen before. It's an incredible amount of usage going on," said Robine Hawkes, president of Our Town.
The same cost of living increases that are affecting seemingly everyone are making food bank users even more vulnerable.
"We know people are struggling with affordable housing, cost of gas, cost of food. All those things are contributing to challenges with putting food on the tables," said Hawkes.
"The government helped out a lot of people during COVID, and they're not now, and it's really showing in the numbers that are coming in. We have already signed up more people than we did all of last year, said Dorene Lemire, the treasurer at Our Town Food Bank.
RELATED
More people than ever seek support from local food banks as prices soar
Food bank demand spikes as many seek support for the first time
Food bank demand surges amid rising cost of living
Simcoe County families struggle to keep up with rising inflation
And it's not just the demand that has been affected.
People from all walks of life are feeling it.
"It is also our donors. Our traditional donor base is just everyone that lives in the community. They're struggling too, so you start to see things going down," said Hawkes.
It's a problem right across the region.
The Simcoe Muskoka Urgent Needs Fund provides just-in-time funding in a micro-grant for people facing a crisis. It has already issued $50,000 in grants and estimates that number to climb to $200,000 by the end of the year.
"These are grants of only $254, so it puts in perspective the number of people we are serving. The estimation is that one in eight people in our community are experiencing food insecurity, and with children and youth, it's one in six," said Brian Shelley, the chief executive and philanthropy officer for United Way Simcoe Muskoka.
Shelley said the number one need by far in recent months has been food.
"Ultimately, families have to make a decision about paying the rent or putting food on the table. Paying their hydro bill or putting food on the table. Two of those options get you evicted so often families are going without the food," lamented Shelley.
Even the volunteer base at Tottenham's food bank has taken a hit.
"The seniors that were working when we shut everything down. They have not come back. We actually haven't asked a lot of them to come back. We are working on getting younger," said Lemire.
Hawkes hopes that the community, which has been so good to the food bank, continues to support it.
"We've always had lots of pasta. We've had pasta that could feed the whole community, and now we're seeing we have no pasta and no beans, so that's a really big indication of high usage and low donations," concluded Hawkes.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
CRA no longer requiring 'bare trust' reporting in 2023 tax return
The Canada Revenue Agency announced Thursday it will not require 'bare trust' reporting from Canadians that it introduced for the 2024 tax season, just four days before the April 2 deadline.
He didn't trust police but sought their help anyway. Two days later, he was dead
Jameek Lowery was among more than 330 Black people who died after police stopped them with tactics that aren’t supposed to be deadly, like physical restraint and use of stun guns, The Associated Press found.
Fluid in eye cells can 'boil' if you watch the eclipse without protection: expert
Millions of people in parts of Eastern and Atlantic Canada will be able to see the rare solar eclipse happening on April 8. But they should only look up if they have proper eye protection, experts say.
NEW More unauthorized products for skin, sexual enhancement, recalled: Here are the recalls of this week
Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recalled various items this week, including torches, beef biltong and unauthorized products related to skin care and sexual enhancement.
Where is the worst place for allergy sufferers in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Do these exercises for core strength if you can't stomach doing planks
Planks are one of the most effective exercises for strengthening your midsection, as they target all of your major core muscles: the transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, external obliques and internal obliques. Yet despite the popularity of various 10-minute plank challenges, planking is actually one of the most dreaded core exercises, according to many fitness experts.
Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
Angst and calls for resting places as Surrey, B.C., pet cemetery development continues
A single headstone is all that remains of dozens of markers for long-buried pets in a subdivision in Surrey’s Newton neighbourhood, where a half-acre parcel bears a large sign announcing the proposed construction of new homes.
Polar ice is melting and changing Earth's rotation. It's messing with time itself
One day in the next couple of years, everyone in the world will lose a second of their time. Exactly when that will happen is being influenced by humans, according to a new study, as melting polar ice alters the Earth’s rotation and changes time itself.