Acton Foodshare - the town’s social safety net - is seeing higher demand and lower donations, prompting an appeal for help.
Inflation on food prices and an overall higher cost of living has led to an increase in clients, said Acton Foodshare chair Mike Albano.
Visiting the local food bank on a Wednesday - the day after it was open to serve local residents - Albano points out that some shelves are "pretty much bare."
“We've been averaging about 25 to 35 families a week," he said. “We're experiencing probably one or two clients a week that are new."
A similar trend of increased demand on food banks appears to be present Ontario-wide. Feed Ontario’s 2021 report says there was a 10 per cent increase in people accessing food banks between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021 - the largest single-year increase since 2009. These individuals accessed hunger relief services almost 3.7 million times - a 12 per cent increase from the year before.
Senior citizens have been hit particularly hard. They are nearly twice as likely to access food banks compared to adults under 65. Their age group saw a 36 per cent rise in food bank usage in 2020 and a 64 per cent increase since 2008.
While the pandemic has had an undeniable impact on food bank usage, in Albano’s experience, the current situation is more to blame on rising costs of life essentials.
“Since the inflation and the cost of gas and the cost of living in general (have gone up), we've seen an uptick in clients.”
Acton Foodshare's storage areas, which are normally well stocked, have empty spaces. The back storage area may look full at first glance, but upon closer inspection, many of the cardboard boxes that normally contain food are empty.
The fridges are nearly out of perishable items, while many non-food items, like diapers and women’s sanitary products, are also in short supply.
Albano says Acton Foodshare is in dire need of:
- Hot instant cereal
- Cold cereal
- Pancake syrup
- Canned pasta
- Canned fruit
- Sugar
- Instant noodles
- Jam
- Crackers
- Cookies
Food donations are always being collected at grocery stores around town and can also be dropped off at Acton Foodshare on Tuesdays between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
