Many places are quiet and slow these days, but not the Salvation Army’s food bank. This time of the year is usually busier for them, and now along with the economic changes, the number of households they are serving keeps growing every day.
"The demand is up right now,” said Ronza Reynard, who is the Salvation Army’s director of ministry. “We are probably up 35 per cent from last March to this March.”
On average the Salvation Army’s food bank supports 60-75 households every month. Reynard noted that for them the demand started picking up right around the school shut down in the middle of March. She didn’t have the final numbers but said they supplied about 30 additional hampers last month.
Reynard believes that they are still not as busy as they are going to get, but it did pick up a little sooner than they anticipated.
“I think it is going to continue to happen over the next month or so,” said Reynard. “We are going to be hitting 100 plus (hampers) per month, especially in April and May. That’s what I’m projecting.”
While they are still expecting to see more people calling in for help, the shelves at the food bank are still looking “not too bad,” thanks to donations and dedicated employees.
“We are definitely in need of things, and we understand, so is everybody. The issue for us right now is accessing the food through people here in town at the local stores. Just like everybody else may be finding it hard to find food, we also at times are finding it hard to find things,” said Reynard.
“So people who have used the food bank before, they might notice the difference in what’s in their hampers, just because again, there are just some things that are missing right now or they are on restricted numbers.”
The Salvation Army’s employees have to follow the same guidelines as everybody else. Reynard said that local stores have been co-operative and allowed them to keep buying in bulk or place orders through their ordering systems. For that, they usually call in to order in advance and then just pick it up as opposed to taking it off the shelves. But if there are limits as to the number of items allowed per person, they have to follow these restrictions as well.
And even though the hamper content may vary, the food bank ensures that people get what they need.
“We are doing our best to make sure that every hamper has all the necessities to get them through to the next day that they are able to get groceries and stuff like that,” said Reynard.
They are working with every family individually. While some people may need their everyday groceries, others now have kids at home and just need a bit more to ensure they have enough to cover up for extra meals that children used to get at school through breakfast or lunch programs.
There are still many people reaching out to help the food bank.
“People are working with us; we had a number of people call us. They want to make a donation, whether that be food or money, or whatnot, it’s really great. The community is really supporting us and asking us what can they do to help us help others,” said Reynard. “We are very thankful for that.”
Any kind of donation is always welcome. If it’s groceries then the employees arrange for drop off or pick up and then clean everything once they receive the donation.
“If somebody is somewhere and they see something that doesn’t have a limit and they think that they want to pick up some extra cans of something for the food bank, that would be wonderful, because maybe they are at the store on the day that the shelf is full of something. And when we get there maybe that day that shelf maybe not full of something.”
Reynard said they are grateful for any kind of help.
The Salvation Army is following health and safety procedures, so there are no walk-ins and all arrangements now take place over the phone. So with any inquiries, Reynard is asking people to call them at the office and they will do their best to help.
“We are just thankful. We want people to continue to support us when they can. Let’s follow the rules and stay safe. And we’ll get through this,” said Reynard.
