When the busiest time of the year arrives, Central Okanagan Food bank says demand for support is growing faster than they can handle.
“We're getting ready for the holidays,” said Trina Speizer, director of development for the food bank. Staff say demand is noticeably higher this year, with chief executive Trevor Moss calling the increase “huge”.
“Unfortunately, from this point last year to today, it's a 19 percent increase for us,” Moss said.
Much of this demand comes from the region's most vulnerable residents: children. Speizer says 44 percent of the food bank's clients are under 15 years old, nearly double the national average of 23 percent.
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The Central Okanagan Food Bank launched its annual Holiday Hamper Campaign on Thursday, which is expected to support more than 4,500 households in Kelowna and West Kelowna.
“The demand is real, it’s there,” Moss said. “It's driven by the cost of living and the cost of food. We feel like we're breaking records a little bit, but that's the reality of where we are.”
The pressure is not limited to the Okanagan. The Lions of Saanich Peninsula food bank near Victoria began turning people away due to a lack of supplies. The Hunger Report shows that use of food banks has increased by 32 percent since 2019, while donations have declined.
Moss says the hope is that the community will step up before the holidays so they can continue to offer the same level of support.
“This holiday season, we hope that donations will meet the need so that we don't have to give up what we offer,” he said. “We've been lucky we haven't had to do that for the last three or four years, but the pressure continues to mount.”
He adds that even small contributions have a big impact.
“We want to remind people that when they give one dollar, it can actually buy three dollars worth of food,” Moss said.
“We just got a great deal on turkeys, so if people give us $25, we can actually get two or three turkeys with that money.”
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