ESSA TWP. — It’s a few days past Christmas and the Angus Food Bank is a beehive of activity.
Inside the tiny, cramped trailer that sits behind the Angus Recreation Centre, a half-dozen volunteers are busy sorting, stacking and shelving a variety of goods including pasta sauces, mac and cheese, cereals and copious cans of tuna.
With little room to move about, the volunteers do their best to stay out of each other’s way.
It’s not an easy dance.
“If there’s one thing I would wish for in the new year, it would be a bigger space,” Heather Morgan, president of the Angus Food Bank, told BarrieToday during a recent interview. “If we had a bigger space, we could do a lot more good.”
In an ideal world, Morgan would like to have a space that’s large enough to accept bulk donations, accommodate a freezer or two for frozen foods, add another fridge for perishable goods and an industrial kitchen so the food bank could start making individual servings of soup and other products.
“We’re trying to be as creative as possible and do the most we can with what’s donated,” Morgan said. “We get a lot of cans of black beans and lentils and the like, and they’re perfect for soups, but we have to make them in a certified kitchen, which we don’t have.
“If we had a kitchen, we could do so much more, including offering the essentials for baking,” she added.
With about 300 registered monthly users — 60 to 70 per cent of them being families with young children — the number of people the food bank helps every month has remained fairly consistent since September, following a steady five-year increase.
“I would say we’ve plateaued since the fall,” Morgan said. “We’re seeing about the same number of people every month, but there’s a lot of new faces.”
Most of those faces belong to new immigrants, Morgan said.
She said over the past two years she’s seen a 25 per cent increase in the number of newcomers to Canada who are using the food bank.
“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who are new to the country,” Morgan said. “It’s everything from new immigrants to international students. They’re supposed to be getting support from the various levels of government, but they’re not.
“We’re being squeezed from all sides,” she added.
It’s a concern, Morgan said, because the food bank receives no federal, provincial or municipal funding.
Additionally, donations are down this year.
Morgan blames the economy.
She said folks who used to donate regularly are having a tough time maintaining their support because of rising costs. The money they used to direct to supporting the food bank is now being used to pay for their own groceries, leaving little or nothing left over for charity.
“People are struggling,” Morgan said, “but they’re still finding a way to support us.
“The only reason we can do what we do is because of the community’s generosity,” she added.
A volunteer with the food bank for five years, Morgan said she derives a great deal of personal satisfaction from her efforts, but admits there are days when the sheer magnitude of the issue overwhelms her.
“When I see a new family and they’re emotional, they don’t want to be here, that triggers it for me,” she said, her voice breaking and tears welling up in her eyes.
“It breaks my heart.”
