The North Bay Food Bank is seeing an increase in its client numbers.
“We’re seeing people that we haven’t seen in thousands of days coming in and having to re-use the food bank, “ says Executive Director Debbie Marson. “They haven’t had to in a long time.”
She says situations are changing for their clients.
“When it comes to being able to afford food based on their income, inflation, the increase in utilities, everything factors in,” Marson says. “If we look at January to September of this year we’ve seen 100 new singles, one-adult households, come in.”
Her comments come on the heels of the annual report from Food Banks Canada, which says a record number of people are turning to their members for help.
The report, released Thursday morning, says there were almost 1.5-million visits to food banks last March.
That’s 15 percent more than March of 2021, and a 35 percent increase over the same month in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
The group says skyrocketing costs for food and housing, high inflation, and low social assistance rates, were the major contributors to the rise in food bank usage.
Data from the North Bay Food Bank is included in the report.
Marson says their shelves are stocked right now thanks to several fund and “foodraisers” this fall, but the need continues.
“As we put it on the shelves, we’re turning around and getting it right back out so it’s a consistent need for us to keep those shelves at that level to be able to service the hampers that we do,” she says. “Sometimes it’s 30-35 hampers in a three-hour session that are going out the door.”
Marson says they’ll be collecting food along the North Bay Santa Claus parade route in November and organizations or individuals can get involved with the My Team Cares initiative, too.
**With files from Norman Jack
