Moncton food bank shares struggles during Hunger Awareness Week

MONCTON – The executive director of Moncton’s Food Depot Alimentaire says a community food centre could bring down the numbers of people who depend on the area’s food banks and soup kitchens.

Chantal Senecal says the Depot is working with agencies providing food in the community to centralize services.

“There is a big movement right now across the country to moving out of the food bank model and into more a community centre model,” she said. “There is access to food as well as other programs transportation education and get clients to move out of that cycle to use the food bank on a monthly basis.”

Senecal said Hunger Awareness Week will help bring these issues before the public.

Ben MacMichael manages the West End Food Bank and says they serve about 400 families and his numbers continue to rise.

“I’ve been here five plus years and every year it seems our numbers are going up,” he said, noting many of his clients are the working poor.

MacMichael says they are trying to keep up with demand through more food drives and plans to change their services hours.

“One thing we see down the line is we want to be open during the evening because of our working poor,” he said.

“Handing out food is the bare minimum. We have to do more as a food bank and that’s increasing peoples’ skill level and increasing ways they can sustain their own lives.”