Headline News

Good Shepherd Food Bank hosts open house for the community

December 8, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Good Shepherd Food Bank in Alliston held an open house on Saturday, Dec. 3, to highlight its current state of operations and the challenges it currently faces and will face in the future.

During the pandemic, food banks across the country experienced a sharp increase in people seeking their services.

In January 2022, Good Shepherd Food Bank averaged 44 clients per “shopping day” (days clients come in and select food). In November, they are now averaging 72 clients per shopping day – that’s an increase of 61 per cent.

Since only one client per family can shop on a given day, that shopper may represent a single person or a couple with several children, meaning the actual number of clients the Food Bank feeds is much higher.

In November 2021, the Food Bank helped feed 617 individuals. From September to November 2022, it helped feed an average of 1,359 people each month. The number of people relying on their services has doubled over the past year with new clients registering every week.

Because of those increases, their grocery bills have skyrocketed from approximately $10,000 to $19,000 per month.

The Food Bank is now reliant on ‘Food Rescue’ programs. Partnered with Foodland, FreschCo, No Frills, Zehrs, and Sheldon’s Creek Dairy, the initiative provides hundreds of pounds of free food every year. This program allows grocery stores to freeze meat on the best-before-date and donate it to food banks.

“Today is an open house,” explained Jaime Karsch, Good Shepherd Food Bank’s operations manager. “We’re trying to get as many council members, MPs, community volunteers, and other community organizations together to let them know a little bit more about what we do. With the recent growth that we’ve had over the past 11 months, we wanted everybody to know how much our demand has increased. We’re up 72 per cent, and those numbers are continuing to grow. We want to get awareness out there so people know where to donate food, how to donate food, and how to make financial donations. Our focus is on nutritious foods, so we provide fruits, vegetables, bread, dairy, meats, the whole works. That’s the focus of our purchasing, and then, of course, we have all the non-perishable items they need as well.”

The Food Rescue program initiative comes with several regulations that must be met. This includes proper transportation of food.

The Good Shepherd Food Bank has ordered a 2022 Ford Transit Cargo van which will arrive sometime in the beginning of 2023. The van will be retrofitted with a commercial-grade refrigeration unit, insulated panels and safety features. They have been able to secure a grant from Feed Ontario to cover the entire cost to retrofit the van with the refrigeration unit, but they are still fundraising to cover the cost of the van.

“We can pick up more food and it’s also refrigerated,” explained Ms. Karsch. “We will be within the guidelines, at the municipal, provincial, and federal level, to make sure we are transporting our food in a safe manner. We’re doing a sponsorship for it right now. Anyone who gives us a sponsorship of $5,000 or more will get a permanent logo on the side of our van so it will be like a travelling billboard. We’ve had quite a bit of success but we are still looking for sponsors.”

The Food Bank provides a valuable service to the community, and with food prices continuing to rise, they are expecting more clients over the coming months.

Readers Comments (0)