November 08, 2011

More than 30,000 Canadian students seek food bank support every month: report

Overall food bank use in Canada has increased by 26 per cent since 2008

By: Briana Hill, CUP Ottawa Bureau Chief

OTTAWA (CUP) — HungerCount, an annual study of food banks and food programs in Canada, found that in 2011, an average of 851,000 individuals were assisted by food banks each month — and four per cent of them were post-secondary students.

“Four per cent means that there [are more than] 34,000 students every month that are going to a food bank for help,” said Food Banks Canada executive director Katharine Schmidt.

“It’s a group of people in this country that is important to us. Educating our young people and preparing people for their futures is important, so to know that we’ve got about 34,000 Canadians who are walking into or getting help from a food bank each and every month, who are post-secondary students, I think is a large number.”

Since 2008, overall food bank use in Canada has increased by 26 per cent.

“The reality is that someone using a food bank could be your neighbor, it could be a friend, it could be a family member, it could be somebody you sat next to on the bus on the way to school — really, it could be just about anyone,” suggested Schmidt.

“The reason people end up at food banks is because their income is not high enough to cover the cost of basic needs.”

Two per cent of those receiving assistance from food banks cite student loans or scholarships as their primary source of income.

The cost of housing, job quality and accessibility to employment insurance are all barriers students face, according to Schmidt.

Food bank use has increased on campuses as well. According to numbers from the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa, the number of people using their food bank has increased from 259 in 2007 to 3,534 in 2011.

“It’s amazing because ten to fifteen years ago, there weren’t campus food banks, and I think the majority of campuses now have food banks,” observed Schmidt. “It’s interesting how they’re helping to service those that need help with some really creative ways to do it so that there isn’t a stigma — and it allows students to get some help with a lot of dignity.”

Beyond being a student, there is no set of eligibility criteria to access the SFUO food bank service.

“We ask that in order for students to have access to the food bank that they produce a student number — it’s really simple. We don’t ask for a lot of details or a lot of specifications, just that they can prove that they’re a student here, [or] that they’re an employee,” explained Chris Hynes, SFUO food bank employee.

Hynes and his coworkers are currently collecting information about who accesses the food bank service on their campus. They have found that students with dependents are more likely to be regular clients.

Fundamentally, food bank services exist to provide help to those in need. Both Schmidt and Hynes invited any students who need assistance to seek it out.

“If you’re struggling and you need it, make the phone call, send the email depending on your food bank, and just get some help, because it’s important — no one’s going to judge you and it will make a difference for you,” encouraged Schmidt.

“Students shouldn’t have to choose between paying tuition, paying rent, and buying food,” said Hynes.

To find a food bank near you, visit www.foodbankscanada.ca.

November 15, 2011

Food bank gears up for busy season

By: Christopher Sun, The Chronicle

Ladysmith food bank volunteers Caroline Davidson, Jacquie Stewart and Kit Willmot place food into bags in preparation for pick up. Approximately 300-350 people rely on the food bank each week. Christopher Sun

The Ladysmith food bank’s new location is too small to store food, forcing the essential service provider to continue using their former location.

The food bank moved to its current location, 620 2nd Avenue, on May 31. Public relations coordinator Caroline Davidson said the new location is nicer and has more height space, but it is smaller in terms of square footage.

“This is much better for us,” Davidson said. “But we still need to use the old place to store food.”

About 300-350 people rely on the food bank each week to supplement their groceries. It is not meant to feed people for an entire week.

“It’s a stop gap,” said treasurer and secretary Jacquie Stewart. “We try to give at least one nutritional meal a day.”

Food banks are often inundated with food donations around this time of the year, which are needed as donations tend to dry up in January, after the holiday season. Stewart said they rely on the national food bank centre in Toronto for food, local grocery stores and the general public.

Since the food bank first opened in 1998, the amount of people using the service has increased, never decreased.

The food bank is run by the Ladysmith Resource Centre Association and staffed by almost 70 volunteers, most from the six local churches. Stewart added that they are always in need of volunteers to pick-up food from the various grocery stores, truck food from storage to the resource centre and bag and hand out the food.

On November 19 and 20, the Ladysmith Kinsmen is holding their second annual food bank drive at 49th Parallel Grocery from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Last year they ended up with 4,000 lbs of food and donations were matched by a couple of large companies.

This year, the Kinsmen hope to exceed that amount, however no company has stepped in to match the donations, one for one again. Hot dogs will also be for sale by donation, with all proceeds going to the food bank as well.

October 28, 2011

Cashier goes ‘above and beyond’ for food bank

By: Margaret Speirs

ALEISHA SINDIA receives thanks from John Wiebenga, vice-president of the Terrace Churches Food Bank, for single-handedly getting customers to donate food items that filled a big bin to overflowing during a Real Canadian Wholesale Store food bank drive. MARGARET SPEIRS

AN EMPLOYEE at a local store took it upon herself to make sure customers helped fill a large bin with items for the Terrace Churches Food Bank.

Aleisha Sindia, cashier at Real Canadian Wholesale Store, noticed there was only one item donated at the end of the store’s first week of a two-week food drive.

She decided to take it upon herself to get the bin filled and would would ask customers if they’d like to donate and point out that some no name items were only 89 cents or three for a certain price.

And the donations began to fill the bin.

By the end of the second week, the bin was filled and overflowing.

“It’s a national program run twice a year and we’ve never seen this kind of response,” said food bank vice-president John Wiebenga about the store’s food drive.

“This will help look after alot of people and that is the bottom line.”

Aleisha was also recognized for going above and beyond her job with a pin from the store’s management that she wears on her shirt.

October 28, 2011

No trick: students seek food bank donations

By: Michelle Ruby

Don’t be surprised if some local students come to the door looking for canned goods instead of candy this Halloween.

Several schools have organized food collections in an effort to stock the shelves of area food banks.

The food drives are part of a larger effort called Halloween for Hunger.

Free the Children and its co-founder Craig Kielburger developed Halloween for Hunger as a simple way for youth to contribute to their own communities.

The concept is simple. Instead of collecting goodies, go door-to-door and gather non-perishable food items.

Last year across Canada, 182,825 young people participated in the program and donated almost 610,000 pounds of food to their local food banks.

“It will make a huge great change in the community.” St. John’s College chaplain Wayne Lachapelle

That’s enough to feed 119 families of four for a year.

Jennifer Tanaszczuk, a Grade 3 teacher at Ecole Dufferin, a French immersion school on Chestnut Street, said about 30 students will be out in that neighbourhood Halloween night filling up wagons with food, which will be given to the Brantford food bank.

“We’re working on awareness (of the program) this year,” said Tanaszczuk.

She said Ecole Dufferin senior students were inspired to get involved after attending We Day in Toronto last month. Thousands of students packed the Air Canada Centre to hear motivational speeches and learn how simple actions can make a difference in their hometowns.

Assumption College and St. John’s College are joining forces in a goal to collect 20,000 pounds of food for local St. Vincent de Paul food banks.

Assumption students will be collecting door-to-door on Monday between 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. St. John’s students will do their rounds on Sunday between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

“We’ve had 250 students sign up,” said Wayne Lachapelle, chaplain at St. John’s. “We decided to do it on Sunday to kind of flip the idea of Devil’s Night.”

Lachapelle said that some St. John’s students live in Paris and St. George and will be doing their food drives there.

“St. Vincent de Paul tells us that 20,000 pounds of food will stock their shelves until the end of February. It will make a huge great change in the community.”

Students will travel in teams and load the donations into cars. Those who won’t be home are welcome to leave a donation outside their front door.

Students from Brantford Collegiate Institute also will be organizing a Halloween food drive.

On Monday, Paris District High School’s students’ council is holding a trick or treat lunchtime for students who must contribute a non-perishable food item for the Trick or Eat campaign.

That youth-led event, organized by Freedom House City Centre, sees teams of people walking along designated routes collecting food, which also will be donated to the city food bank. That group is hoping to collect 10,000 pounds of non-perishables.

mruby@theexpositor.com

September 16, 2011

$5 budget keeps reporter hungry

By: Jeremy Warren

Jeremy Warren managed to last a week eating out of a box of food from the Saskatoon Food Bank Photograph by: Gord Waldner, The StarPhoenix

I’ve spent much of the past seven days thinking about a loonie, a very specific ill-gotten loonie.

This loonie came into my hands because of a cashier’s mistake in the checkout line at the Eighth Street Superstore. After she scanned my paltry selection of groceries – a 400 gram block of instant noodles and 12 turkey wieners – she handed back my change plus an extra dollar for a total of $3.50.

I was in Superstore because of the Saskatoon Food Bank and Learning Centre’s Food Basket Challenge. The organization had asked me and 13 other people in Saskatoon to live off of a food hamper for seven days supplemented only by five pantry items of my choosing (salt, pepper, hot sauce, sweet and sour sauce, coffee) and a weeklong food budget of $5.

Five dollars, of course, doesn’t buy much. So when the cashier made her mistake, I kept the loonie.

Usually, I would point out the error and hand back the extra cash.

But in an instant I realized how that easy moral choice to give back the mistaken change had been flipped in my mind: With margarine still to buy, which would leave me with only 62 cents, that loonie was the difference between buying nothing or a loaf of bread.

The word “choice” is used often in conversations about food banks. Former food bank clients talk about the choice between paying for the electric bill or food. Do you pay for cheap food that will last a week or do you buy fresh fruit that will last two days? Should I keep that loonie?

“Poverty takes away people’s choice,” said Laurie O’Conor, director of operations for the Saskatoon Food Bank. “Healthy eating isn’t even part of the picture. It’s often a choice of having a roof over your head or going to the grocery store.”

The Food Basket Challenge is an illusion. The challenge is meant to recreate the experience of living off a food hamper (donated specifically for the challenge) for seven days, although a single hamper is supposed to last two weeks and is meant to supplement whatever income a person has to spend on food. I could quit anytime and even if I did make it seven days – I did – I get to return to my wasteful, gluttonous eating habits.

On Sept. 7, I bused to the Saskatoon Food Bank at Avenue C South to pick up my hamper. I arrived just as the registration clerks went on a coffee break, but I joined the four people already waiting. Before the clerks’ 15-minute break finished, the line had grown to about 30 people.

Anyone can access the food bank, no questions asked. All you need is proof of address and a valid health card for each person who’ll use the hamper. In the line behind me stood mothers with young children, seniors, aboriginal people, immigrants and Caucasians.

My food basket included: Eight grapefruits, one tub of yogurt, six kid-sized yogurts, a small block of mozzarella cheese, one 400-millilitre bottle of apple juice, six cheese and cracker packs, one can of beans, a 40-gram can of tuna, one can of cream of mushroom soup, two pizza pretzels, two small frozen pizzas, a box of macaroni and cheese, one baguette (stale by the time I got home), one medium-sized bag of frozen vegetables and one mediumsized bag of coleslaw.

Meals were simple affairs. For breakfast, I usually had coffee, half of a grapefruit and yogurt. Supper brought more grapefruit and either a mini frozen pizza or something slightly more complicated, such as a macaroni and cheese casserole with diced turkey wieners and crumbled baguette and mozzarella cheese or diced turkey wieners with vegetables on top of instant noodles. I drank only water and coffee for six days, leaving the apple juice as a treat on the seventh.

Unable to snack during the day, my energy waned in the evening. I was constantly hungry, but never starving, because I had to ration my supply. If I ate too much at supper, I’d have less for lunch. Bowel movements, an important measure of a healthy diet, by the third day were infrequent and minimal. I lost seven pounds, dropping to 155 lb.

Most items the food bank hands out are donated by individuals or businesses. Grocery stores give away expired or soon-to-expire food and day-old bread, and some farmers or producers will donate fresh fruit or vegetables when they’re overstocked.

Food banks were established as a temporary solution to food security problems. But the need for food has never disappeared. If there’s one persistent criticism of food banks, it’s the argument that the organization creates a dependency on handouts.

“It’s a balance,” O’Conor said. “We know there are people who ended up short after paying the bills, people who are seniors or students or who work minimum-wage jobs. We don’t want people to slip through the cracks. We don’t want someone who is really struggling to have no place to go.”

In March 2010, the number people using the Saskatoon Food Bank increased 20 per cent compared to the same month in 2009, to 22,662 people from 18,875, according to a Food Banks Canada study. Children accounted for 40 per cent of people using the food bank that month.

The Saskatoon Food Bank offers other services with its learning centre. There are job coaches on site and the organization joins with other groups to offer literacy and skills training programs. There’s a clothing depot, too. These services are meant to help people wean themselves off the food bank.

“We need to offer people a way out,” O’Conor said. “We understand there are underlying issues behind hunger. Hunger is part of a bigger picture and that’s poverty. The way we can work ourselves out of a job is to help people move past the problems that keep them in poverty.”

After seven days, I still had half of a baguette and some noodles. The loonie sat on my kitchen table for a week, reminding me how easy it is for hunger to change a person’s behaviour. Changing it again was a simple for me as waking up after the challenge, but for thousands of people in Saskatoon, change is as hard the choice between rent and food.

Visit www.foodbasketchallenge.com to read the accounts of other participants.

© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix

September 06, 2011

Fresh from your heart

New farmers’ market program helps the Calgary Food Bank

By: Gwendolyn Richards

Kathryn Sim, spokeswoman for the food bank, at Kingsland Farmers Market in Calgary, which is one location for fresh food donations to the food bank. Photograph by: Leah Hennel, Calgary Herald

A trip to the farmers’ market for soft and sweet peaches, bright green beans or perfectly ripe tomatoes is part of the weekly ritual for many Calgarians.

Ripe and ready-to-eat fruit and vegetables, with their vibrant colours and flavours, round out a tasty meal.

Now, a new campaign from the Calgary Food Bank is encouraging people shopping at farmers’ markets to pick up an extra head of lettuce, a second bunch of carrots or another bag of fruit and donate it to help those accessing the organization’s emergency food hampers.

Starting tomorrow, farmers’ markets around the city will have donation bins set up on a rotating basis to take fresh fruits and vegetables for the food bank. (For the full schedule, see sidebar.)

Food bank spokeswoman Kathryn Sim says the message of the Fresh From the Heart campaign is simple: the food bank accepts fresh food contributions — just not at regular grocery store drop boxes. “There’s nothing wrong with canned (goods),” says Sim.

“We’d like to be able to provide fresh fruits and vegetables as well.”

Vendors at the markets will have signs in their space with information about the campaign, as well as a volunteer with a shopping cart wandering around chatting with people about Fresh From the Heart.

Kingsland market manager Darrell Komick is looking forward to the program.

“People associate farmers’ markets with fresh; it’s a great opportunity for people to understand that you can give fresh food to the food bank,” he says. “A healthy diet includes fresh fruit and vegetables and this will provide a means to make those donations.”

Last year, 140,000 emergency hampers were given to families. Most come three or fewer times, says Sim.

For the 2010-2011 fiscal year, the food bank is predicting that number will climb to 150,000 — reflecting the city’s growth.

Each hamper is packed with staples and includes seven days’ worth of food that matches the Canadian food guidelines.

Proper nutrition can be met with canned goods, but there is something special about produce right from the farm or garden.

“When you’re stressed about where your next meal is coming from, what you’re going to feed your kids, it’s fun to have something that’s not something you would budget money for. It’s exciting to those on a strict budget to receive food like that,” says Sim.

Clients get to choose what they want from the selection of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Staff also make suggestions on how to use the food — such as freezing berries for a taste of summer when the weather turns. “It starts conversations,” says Sim.

Donated produce has a quick turnaround time.

“If it comes in on a Saturday, by Monday it will be on the table of one of our families,” says Sim.

Of course, farmers’ markets are not the only way for people to donate. Fresh food donations — including those from a home garden — are also accepted at the food bank itself, 5000 11th St. S.E.

“You may think you have a bumper crop of zucchini, but we’ll move it out the door quickly,” says Sim.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

August 11, 2011

Higher prices for food hurt society’s most vulnerable

Extra money | Group wants province to give $50 healthy food supplement to those struggling financially

By: Adam Huras

It costs more to eat healthy as prices for a number of food items have increased in recent months. AFP/Getty

A new report shows that the price of basic food items in New Brunswick has jumped roughly six per cent in the last year, driving up food bank usage in the province and pushing minimum wage workers and social assistance recipients away from healthy eating.

The results have a provincial non-profit organization renewing its call for the creation of a $50-per-month healthy food supplement for households on social assistance, while also asking for a raise in the basic assistance rate to match the Atlantic Canadian average.

The Common Front for Social Justice surveyed 12 grocery stores belonging to three well-known chains with locations in all corners of the province over the last year.

Between July 2010 and July 2011, the organization recorded a sharp increase in food prices.

Selecting 67 items in each store and using a method developed by Health Canada to represent a “bare-bones” nutritious diet, the non-profit organization found that 40 items were more expensive than one year ago.

The cost of a nutritious food basket rose by 5.7 per cent in one year.

“We don’t see an end to the increasing price of food so there needs to be action to help New Brunswickers on social assistance or with low incomes,” said Jean-Claude Basque, provincial co-ordinator of the organization.

“We’re not surprised by the numbers here.

“There have been increases to food prices, to fuel prices, rent and heating, but yet nothing to help the income of the poorest New Brunswickers.”

The price of carrots jumped 44 per cent, according to the study. Potatoes cost 19 per cent more, lettuce was up 13 per cent on average, eggs 12 per cent, whole wheat bread jumped 11 per cent and orange juice by six per cent.

The survey findings indicate that a family of four spends roughly $9,700 to pay for a nutritious diet each year.

A single mom with a young child spends more than $5,400.

A single adult spends roughly $3,600.

The basic social assistance rate sits at $537 per month, which equates to roughly $6,400 annually.

“People at the lower end of the income scale such as minimum wage workers, social assistance recipients, single parents with children and senior citizens receiving the supplement are unable to feed themselves properly,” concluded the report.

The percentage jump is less than a similar Ontario study – which recorded more than a six per cent increase in that province – but well above the national average.

Statistics Canada said food prices were up 4.3 per cent in June from a year earlier, following a 3.9 per cent increase in May.

Meat prices were up 5.9 per cent, bakery products were up 7.2 per cent and fresh-vegetable prices jumped 8.4 per cent.

Prices for food purchased from restaurants also rose 3.3 per cent.

Food prices are climbing faster than the overall inflation rate even as the latest consumer price index from Statistics Canada shows the inflation rate hit an eight-year high of 3.7 per cent.

“The monthly cost of a nutritious diet is now at an all-time high,” Basque said.

The organization said not having enough to eat has an impact on health, literacy, early childhood development and education, Basque said Wednesday.

The increased cost of food prices calculated by the organization may even be higher, as it doesn’t include a new hike in the price of milk.

The New Brunswick Farm Products Commission decided earlier this month to hike the province’s milk prices for the second time in a year to compensate for increased production costs.

The farm products commission raised the price of milk by about four cents per litre at the beginning of August, after an increase of five cents per litre in February.

In the latest increase in milk prices, the farm products commission allowed the cost of milk for schoolchildren to be increased for the first time in seven years.

The newly elected chief of the United Nations food agency recently said high food prices will be felt internationally for years to come.

“High prices will remain not only a few years; this is not only a temporary imbalance,” director general-elect Jose Graziano da Silva said.

“This is related to financial markets and until we reach a more stable financial situation worldwide, commodities prices will reflect that.”

Basque said the creation of a $50-per-month healthy food supplement and an increase in basic assistance rates will help fend against the unforeseen end of higher food prices.

“This would be a way of not even catching up, but just trying to catch up,” he said.

August 03, 2011

Students aim to break cycle of Canadian poverty

By: Jordan Allard, special to the Star

For post-secondary students, it’s not uncommon to seek summertime employment in order to put some extra cash in their pockets.

A pair of Guelph University scholars are spending their summer travelling across Canada in search of money — not for their pockets, but rather for the mouths of others.

“We both have a love for adventure. We’ve talked about doing this for a while and decided why not do this for a cause,” said Tyler Valiquette, in town earlier this week as part of his summer bike tour with best friend Jason Morgenstern.

“It’s about making students, who are Canada’s future, aware that hunger is a problem here and we can make a difference,” Morgenstern added.

The Perth, Ont. natives are biking across our home and native land in search of money for Meal Exchange — a group that provides food organizations in the cities they’re based in with money and supplies.

Meal Exchange was founded by students and is run by students.

“Both of us think it’s important for young people to get involved in this issue, especially seeing as it deals with our country,” Valiquette said.

Meal Exchange directly impacts the nearly 2.7 million Canadians Statistics Canada classifies as living in a food insecure household. This is what the two 21-year-olds say drew them to the organization.

Morgenstern — who has been working for the group in recent years — reached out to his friend about getting involved.

Since Valiquette has done charity missions Arizona, Mexico and Ecuador in the past few summers, it was a natural fit.

“It’s great to help other countries, but there’s still huge problems here in Canada. I’m glad to be able to help my fellow Canadians,” he said.

Both are also hoping to help people on a full-time basis after they finish school.

Valiquette is studying international development, while Morgenstern wants to become a doctor.

The pair are pleased to report they’ve been treated “extremely well” by their fellow countrymen — raising $5,800 so far.

“People have been honking and waving in support when they see us,” said Morgenstern. “Even at rest stops people are always asking questions. Everyone has been so nice to us.”

Including the Canadian wildlife.

On the second day of their adventure — which started in Victoria, British Columbia on July 2 — they were riding outside Vancouver when a black bear wandered up for a closer look.

“I didn’t see this one bear until I was less than 10 feet away from it. He glared at us and unfortunately we were biking up-hill so it was harder to speed off, but we managed,” Valiquette recalled.

The two best friends said if they continue their pace of 150 per day, they should wrap up the cross-country trip on Aug. 31.

People wanting to donate can visit www.canadacrossing.ca.

July 26, 2011

Hunger a real concern for too many Canadians

By: John Chambers, QMI Agency

Imagine a long, painful ache in your stomach; a constant feeling of weakness that no amount of wishing will help alleviate.

Now imagine that your children suffer those symptoms and the cure is something as simple as a healthy meal.

Too many Canadians don’t need to imagine; they suffer through days of hunger and sickness, wanting nothing more than to be able to put food on the table and provide for their kids.

In fact, more than five million Canadians currently live in poverty. Of those, one million are children.

It’s easy to forget a problem exists. After all, it’s summer and people are in their backyards barbecuing; maybe you had a nice steak last night, chicken, ribs, hamburgers or hot dogs.

In campgrounds across the country families are cooking over open fires, and in communities patios and restaurants are full as people gather to enjoy the weather and the best selections from the menus.

But not everyone can do that. This summer, not everyone will do that. And that needs to change.

Hunger and poverty are not winter problems. They aren’t Thanksgiving and Christmas problems.

Yet Canadians are more inclined to dig into their pockets and help the needy at holiday and festive times of the year. Perhaps that’s for no other reason than it helps push some of the guilt to the background.

Poverty and hunger happen every day in a country that from a global standpoint is as fruitful as they come.

As Canadians, we are blessed with an abundance of agriculture, fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy and grain. Canada is the poster country for the four food groups. Still, more than five million Canadians find themselves standing on the outside and looking in at this country’s bountiful harvest and offerings.

The warm summer weather does not negate the need to give, and to give generously. Food banks across Canada are struggling to meet the needs of our neighbours.

It’s easy to ignore the problem. It’s just as easy to be part of the solution. A few extra canned goods in the shopping cart, a few extra staples, and we can help alleviate hunger in Canada.

Don’t let hunger be someone else’s problem. We are better than that. We should all be better than that. And together, we can be better than that.

July 24, 2011

Need knows no season

Robert Thorpe says the Parkdale food bank is struggling to keep up with an increasing demand and a drastic drop in donations.

A Toronto food bank that helps 2,400 people every month served notice that it had so little food it was about to close its doors, an anonymous donor came through to save it. For now, at least.

It was a summer miracle for Parkdale’s Community Food Bank. But there aren’t too many of those. Across the Greater Toronto Area, hundreds of similar operations rely on smaller, regular acts of giving. And that can be a real problem in the middle of summer.

At Christmas, moved by the generous spirit of the holiday season, we routinely remember those who struggle to provide their families with the very basics. At Thanksgiving, when many family traditions revolve around lavish meals, our thoughts easily turn to those who would go hungry without help from a local food bank.

But in the summer, while reading a book at the cottage or trying to cool off the kids at a splash pad, donating a bag of nutritious food or making a financial contribution to a food bank may not be top of mind.

Donations drop off so drastically in the summer that some agencies, like Parkdale’s Community Food Bank, find themselves struggling just to keep the rent paid, much less maintain food on the shelves.

But keep their doors open they must. While donations decline in the summer, the need does not. Indeed, without school breakfast and snack programs the need for nutritious food in the summer is even greater for many low-income families.

Moreover, the recent economic downturn has made the problem worse: donations are down while food bank use is at an all-time high.

Daily Bread, Toronto’s largest food bank, encourages the food industry to help fill the summer void. It’s never enough. Last month, Daily Bread spent more than $160,000 buying food to keep up with the demand.

Torontonians are famously generous, routinely picking up the slack for governments that fall short in providing for the needy. It isn’t that anyone cares less in the summer; it’s just that without well-advertised food drives not enough people think about it or know what to do.

If you can spare something, donating is easy to do. Fire halls accept nutritious, non-perishable food all year long. And cash donations are always welcome.