Despite its best efforts, the Barrie Food Bank says it has landed short of its fall campaign, and has made the decision to extend the annual campaign until the end of October.
“We missed our campaign target,” said Karen Shuh, who took over the role of executive director at the Barrie Food Bank in September.
The organization had set an ambitious goal of collecting 150,000 pounds of food and raising $250,000 this year.
Although they met the food donation target — collecting 150,877 pounds of food, which is an increase of more than 28 per cent from last year — unfortunately the financial goal fell short by $50,000, or 20 per cent, Shuh told BarrieToday.
“Our goal was aggressive to begin with … but it was really based on the increase in demand we are seeing. We need that money otherwise we’re going to have to start cutting quantities," she added. “We still consider it a win because we are still nine per cent higher than last year for the fall campaign."
That said, the local food bank has seen an increase of 83 per cent in client demand, which is why such a lofty goal was needed in the first place.
“We talk about (being) double from last year and triple from pre-pandemic levels. We haven’t seen a plateau and the numbers are continuing to climb, and we are climbing over a really high base,” Shuh said. “We have forcasted another 45 per cent increase for this fiscal year and we are seeing that is pretty much happening.”
Shuh noted the organization’s Corner Store, which is open four mornings a week for the local homeless population, is also seeing a significant increase in users.
“We all know there’s a large population of unhoused in Barrie. We are seeing the greatest amount of increases coming from that group," she said. "We had 859 visits last month and that’s up 90 per cent from the month before.
"There’s just more unhoused people in our community that need support.”
Shuh said the organization will happily take any and all donations, however financial contributions do allow staff to “fill the gaps” between what is on the shelves and what is needed.
“We can buy better than other people can, and we buy what we need and when we need it,” she said. “We can go category by category and (see) what we need to top up.”
That typically includes kid’s snacks, rice, pasta, hygiene and household products, as well as soups, canned chilies and beans which are high in protein.
“When the money and the donations don’t come in, the only lever we have to pull is reducing categories and quantities of categories," Shuh said. "We’ve got the situation where we are cutting a dozen eggs in half because we can’t afford to give out the full dozen to a single and a couple.
“It’s that kind of having to make those difficult choices as to how we equitably distribute the donations that come in and balance at the end of the month," she added.
Additional donations between now until Oct. 31 will help ensure the more than 7,000 neighbours who rely on the Barrie Food Bank get the equitable and consistent food support they need, Shuh said.
For more information about the Barrie Food Bank, click here.
