With the holiday season swiftly approaching, food banks are preparing for their busiest time. The increase in food demand for the past several years has only gotten worse, especially around the holiday season.
Over the past five years, the London Food Bank has doubled in demand. The rate of change in usage since last year has been over 6% and has increased by 90% since March 2019, and food banks across Canada are struggling to meet the demand.
Jane Roy London Food Bank Co-Director (Credit londonfoodbank.ca)
“For us, it gets really really busy. It gets really busy for us, not just with the need but obviously with people making donations.”
Jane Roy is the co-executive director of The London Food Bank. Roy spoke about what the London Food Bank will be doing for the holiday season.
“It’s more about collecting food than it is about giving out. In terms of giving out, we’re not doing anything different. We just keep with our regular day-by-day schedule. We are not closing for the holiday season. We’re closing for obviously the stat holidays, but between Christmas and New Year’s we’ll be open” Roy said.
Londoners don’t just have to donate at the London Food Bank, as multiple other food drives are going on around the holiday season.
“there’s lots of different food drives going on.” “There are business cares are starting up, all sorts of different groups are doing different things for us. And so it’ll be a busy holiday time.”
Jane Roy says it’s always great to donate to the London Food Bank but there are other opportunities to help out.
“I think the biggest message we can consistently give is to be patient, take care of others, and sometimes it’s wonderful to make a donation to the food bank. I think that’s great because obviously, we are helping so many people. But if you know your neighbor needs a meal or needs groceries, do that instead, that’s in many ways just as important. The ability to help the people around us so they don’t come to the food bank.”
