Food bank phasing out large food donations
The Clearview-Stayner Food Bank is changing the way it sources food.
“I want to sincerely thank everyone who continues to make donations, especially over the past two years. It was challenging at the food bank but your support meant everything,” said manager Pam Royal.
As of Sept. 1, the food bank will not be accepting large food donations but is very appreciative of cash, cheques and gift cards. The food bank will be purchasing specific food items through a local grocery store, which will be delivered twice per month.
Royal said the food bank has limited space and volunteer capacity to store, sort and manage all of the food donations in recent years.
She said it broke her heart to have to turn away donations last year.
“We had nowhere to put it, we literally had nowhere to put it. We couldn’t even let them bring it into the building because we had nowhere to set it down,” said Royal.
Last two Christmases, Royal said volunteers were totally overwhelmed with large donations of food.
Volunteers spend days on end sorting and packing, putting a strain on their limited resources.
They had to give away more than 50 cartons of food to other food banks. Royal said 30 per cent of what is donated through large scale food drives is unusable because they are extremely out of date, partially used, and in poor condition. Royal said the oldest item they have received is from 1998.
“We know this happens because people have told us they have cleaned out Grandma’s pantry and brought it to the food bank,” said Royal.
She said volunteers are very conscientious about waste so volunteers take boxes of unusable food home to be composted, the packaging recycled.
The volunteer work force is mostly over the age of 70 and Royal, who does most of the shopping these days, needed to find a new way of operating.
“Shopping got to be a major, major burden. I was having to go to three or four stores to get the bargains, and some stores were not overly pleased to help out the Stayner food bank and they really limited what they would sell me,” said Royal.
The food bank is still encouraging the community support of the food bank through other campaigns. Leading up to September, the food bank is encouraging donations of backpacks and school supplies to support families with children heading back to school. Later in the fall, Royal said she will be calling for donations of men’s socks – because she has learned that the hardest hit of the food bank’s clientele are the single older men who are in need of warm socks. In the winter, the food bank will be calling for donations of hats and mitts.
Royal said if any school or organization is disappointed about not doing a food drive, they are welcome to contact her because she has lots of ideas for ways for people to donate.
To contact the food bank, call 705- 517-0166 between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
