Kingston, Ont. food services feeling the squeeze – Kingston | 24CA News
There’s no query that, between inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic, meals insecurity has change into a bigger problem over the course of the previous few years.
Lines at drop-in lunches have gotten longer, whereas meals banks have needed to hustle to maintain up with demand.
“This past year was a record year for us. We handed out over 16,000 food hampers and that’s 7,273 people in the Kingston area we helped,” mentioned Dan Irwin, government director for Kingston’s Partners in Mission Food Bank.
He mentioned it’s the primary time they’ve served greater than 7,000 individuals in a 12 months, and it alerts what he says is a “very tough point in Ontario.”
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One of the turning factors got here with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With many individuals out of labor, Irwin mentioned that many sought out assist in a spot they’d by no means needed to flip to earlier than: the meals financial institution.
He additionally mentioned that disaster is just worsening with skyrocketing inflation.
“Right away people can see on the shelves we’ve got a food inflation factor going on. That’s a known,” he mentioned.
So far, Irwin mentioned, this 12 months hasn’t proven indicators of slowing.
He mentioned that as much as the top of March, the meals financial institution is up 6.1 per cent when it comes to service this 12 months over 2022.
Meantime, The Food Sharing Project, a non-profit that gives meals to youngsters in school, mentioned it’s upset that there wasn’t cash included for a nationwide faculty meals program within the 2023 federal funds.
“It seems to me that it, perhaps, is a competing interests kind of situation, and we’re going to keep advocating for the program,” mentioned Brenda Moore, the non-profit’s chair.
Moore mentioned that earlier than the onset of the pandemic, this system was sending $12,000 of meals into faculties each week.
Since the pandemic started, that quantity has greater than doubled to $25,000.
“School co-ordinators are calling and saying, ‘We’re really sorry, we have to increase our order for next week because the kids are just so hungry.’”
Despite this, she mentioned they’ll be OK because of some reserves till the top of this faculty 12 months, and can to seek out methods to chop prices within the meantime.
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