The 100 Mile House Food Bank Society is feeling the squeeze of rising food costs and demand for their services.
Danny Williams, the president of the 100 Mile House Food Bank Society, said that while they've been able to meet demand so far, more people are signing up to receive food every day now. This high demand has forced the food bank to make the difficult decision to cut their food hamper days from twice a month to once a month starting in June.
"Right now we do two hampers a month on the first and third Tuesday of every month and then we do produce Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Due to the increase in clientele and recipients, we're trying to feed everybody but the price of food means we're going to have to cut one of the hamper days out," Williams explained. "Starting in June we're going to do the second Tuesday of (the month) will be the hamper day and there will still be Monday, Wednesday and Friday for produce."
Williams said the food bank spends roughly $3,000 every week to purchase food, both fresh and canned, for its users. That works out to roughly $12,000 a month and $144,000 a year.
Since Christmas Williams said they've been getting new registrations for the food bank almost every day, which he can understand when he sees the price of food in local stores. He believes a mixture of food prices and general affordability is driving more people to rely on the food bank to make ends meet.
"The first and third Tuesday of every month we usually get over 200 cars, so it's probably 400 cars a month just in hampers. That's not counting produce which we average 40 to 50 a day for that," Williams explained.
When asked if this measure will be short-term or long-term, Williams remarked it will depend on if the price of food drops but added he believes it will end up being a long-term decision.
"We're trying to feed everybody. We get a lot of phone calls from people complaining about other people in the lineup saying 'they don't belong there' and 'they live together and are getting separate hampers'. We get a lot of that and we can't say no to anybody. We don't know their circumstances," Williams remarked. "Right now, we're doing our best, we're hanging in there. I'm pretty sure we can keep up."
This higher demand has also come during a lull in donations that typically occurs after Christmas. Williams said they always welcome donations of food or money, especially money as they can use it to purchase more food in bulk from local grocery stores.
He noted that Tim Hortons is also running its Smile Cookies fundraiser on April 27 and that 100 Mile House's Tim Hortons plans to donate some of the proceeds raised to the food bank. He encourages anyone who wants to support the food bank to buy buy some of those cookies.
"We can use the donations. Tim Hortons is really a big supporter of the food bank," Williams remarked.
Anyone looking to donate or volunteer is invited to reach out to the 100 Mile House Food Bank via 250-395-3923 or come by the food bank during their regular operating hours. Cash donations and e-transfer are both accepted.
