Food banks optimistic about early 2023

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This article was published 11/01/2023 (712 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While the number of people using food banks across Canada rose to an all-time high in 2022, two local Westman organizations can’t help but feel hopeful for the future after seeing a wave of generous donations last month.

The community of Neepawa, located 74 kilometres northeast of Brandon, proved to be very generous over the holiday season and even after Christmas, said Amanda Naughton-Gale, community ministries director at the Salvation Army, which runs the food bank.

“We’ve been so blessed with people filling boxes and taking them down,” she said. “A lot of people … didn’t get it here before Christmas, and that’s OK. Hunger isn’t just a seasonal thing; it’s not just a holiday situation.”

The donations will go a long way in seeing the food bank through the first few months of the new year, although March could present an issue, as it’s often the most difficult month to keep food on the shelves, Naughton-Gale said.

“For us, we usually see kind of an uptick in December, and usually January and February are kind of in an upswing. March is typically one of the highest months for usage for food banks across the country.”

A late-December donation of $67,000 from the Province of Manitoba, which Naughton-Gale calls an “amazing” contribution, will also make sure people in the Neepawa area don’t go hungry in the coming months.

“Some of that [donation] went to Christmas, some of that is to keep the shelves stocked in the food bank, but we’re also looking to do some added programming for our community to help people manage food costs and find different ways to stretch their food budgets and cook with what they’ve got,” she said.

Nearly 1.5 million visits were made to Canadian food banks last March, a figure that Food Banks Canada said in its October report was 15 per cent higher than the number of visits in the same month in 2021, and 35 per cent higher than in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic settled over the country and the world.

That data is reflected in the increase in people who make use of the Minnedosa and Area Food Bank, said Carol Brown, the chair of the organization. This fiscal year, the food bank saw a 47 per cent increase in recipients and a 33 per cent decrease in the amount of food donations.

“It’s quite a gap,” Brown said.

Thankfully, a large amount of donations and collection through December means the Minnedosa and Area Food Bank will likely be well stocked for January, Brown said.

“We’re OK for the beginning of the year. It’s going to be come February or March where people aren’t doing donations as much as they were and there’s no active collections going on … that’s when we tend to see it drop off more.”

Larissa Brook Instance, owner of Riss’ Sugar and Spa near Minnedosa, spent the month of December asking her clients to bring a non-perishable item to donate to the Minnedosa and Area Food Bank when they came in for their appointments. Thanks to their generosity, Instance said, she was able to donate 46.8 kilograms of food to the not-for-profit organization on Christmas Eve, along with $60 in cash donations.

Instance first began collecting money for the food bank in 2018, but during 2020, she didn’t have the chance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She started up again in 2021, and it’s something she wants to continue to do each holiday season.

“I think I’ll just do it yearly,” she said. ” I mean, even if I don’t get as much some years, it’s still probably worth it anyway.”

Many people want to help with the issue of hunger in their community, Instance said. It’s just a matter of finding a convenient way to do so.

“I feel like so many people want to donate to the food bank … but they don’t want to just take one item or two items in,” she said. “Here … you can take one or two items, and [suddenly] it’s a full box between how many of us put stuff in there.”

Finding a way to give back is important for anyone who does business in a community, Instance said.

“It’s such an easy thing for me to do … I wish more businesses would.”

As of November, the Minnedosa and Area Food Bank started requesting regular donations from Harvest Manitoba, the fourth-largest food distributor in Canada and the only provincial food network in Manitoba. The non-profit, community-based organization reported last month that twice as many people are using food banks today compared to two years ago. A record number of children are also using food banks, the group said in its Harvest Voices release, with 15,000 every month from both single- and dual-parent households.

Harvest Manitoba didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

» mleybourne@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press

» Twitter: @miraleybourne