Regina Food Bank raises 305 tonnes of food in annual drive

REGINA – On Saturday hundreds of volunteers hit the streets to help the Regina Food Bank’s annual drive, which raised 305 tonnes of food.

“We’ve got lots of people out driving and picking up food from the residences so we’re going out, getting that stuff, and bringing it back here,” said volunteer Greg Miller.

Donations were being brought to fire halls across the city to be loaded into trucks before going to Food Bank headquarters.

These donations are coming at a time when the Food Bank is seeing a spike in applications according to CEO Steve Compton.

“One of the things that we’re seeing is that it tends to be economic challenges. It tends to be more rent than income and all those types of things. Cost of living, change in employment.”

Compton added that as many as 50 applications in a day have been submitted over the past month. This has added to the thousands of people they serve each month.

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“With the up-kick that we’re seeing right now we’re getting about 9,000 request a month,” said Compton. “That’s a number we’re hopeful is a short term circumstance and we see that level off to what we experienced in the summer time.”

Many food bank clients are people on fixed incomes and those who have fallen on hard times, but one of their largest customer groups are not the ones going to the Food Bank.

“You certainly see that half of those are kids. You don’t see them at the food bank necessarily. You see the adults, you see the caregivers, the moms, the dads, the grandmas, but half of who we serve are under the age of 16,” said Compton.

The food will help many people. However, there are some who believe more needs to be done.

While food banks are necessary presently we do have to move beyond just looking at charity and the immediate needs,” said Peter Gilmer from the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry; a lobby group that believes public policy is the answer to food security issues.

“Often food security is the result of having adequate income security, and certainly we are very concerned that there be incomes in place that meet people’s basic needs,” Gilmer added.

This food drive has been running for 29 years, making it the longest running continuous food drive in Canada.