The London Food Bank is sounding the alarm about the growing needs of the community, saying the agency is at a “crossroads” as winter approaches, as food prices continue to climb, and as growing numbers of Londoners turn to them for help.
Food donations will soon not be enough to keep up with demand, Glen Pearson, the food bank’s co-executive director, said on Twitter on Thursday, adding that the organization was taking steps to “work with partners to invest in future food supplies,” including through the growing of food.
Record numbers of families and individuals have been seeking out the food bank’s services this year, with grocery prices climbing at the fastest rate since 1981, according to Statistics Canada.
The agency reported last month that although the country’s annual inflation rate fell to 6.9 per cent in September, food prices rose 11.4 per cent compared to a year earlier.
“Every day is kind of like a new record. It’s not just here, food banks across the country are in entirely new territory that they’ve never been in before,” Pearson said in an interview on London Live with Mike Stubbs on Thursday.
Some 21,000 people a month are coming to the food bank for help, Pearson says. The agency’s busiest three months ever occurred in the second half of this year.
In addition to its own clients, the food bank also supports around 30 other local agencies, agencies which Pearson notes are also experiencing rising demands for service.
“We don’t charge for that food, we give it out free to people because it was given to us free. But the reality is, is that their demands are really going up as well,” he said.
“Although we feel the climb for us, the climb is steep for the others as well, and somehow we have to be able to meet both of those things, not just our own concerns.”
To keep up, Pearson says the food bank is working with local food growers and other business groups with the aim of addressing food security, and growing food for other local agencies.
The food bank, he added, needs to ease the financial pressures not just on the agencies it helps, but also on those who donate.
“Rather than depending on donations coming in, is there a way that we can invest in food and grow food in a way (that) takes some of the pressure off of donors?” Pearson said.
“If we keep coming to donors all the time with these needs, at some point they’re not going to be able to handle it all.”
Pearson wouldn’t specify which partners the food bank is working with, noting that some negotiations are still ongoing.
Local business leaders have realized that “food security is now right on the edge,” he said.
“These business leaders came to the food bank, and we sat down, and we met with them, told them what was going on and made some suggestions, and they just 100 per cent committed right there,” he said of a meeting earlier this week.
“That’s what gives me confidence that we’re going to be able to do it… because the business community is willing to step up and do some of the stuff.”
Information on how to donate to the food bank can be found on London Food Bank’s website.
— With files from The Canadian Press