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Economic pressures mean food banks have to get creative when finding ways to feed people.
According to Laurie O’Connor, executive director of the Saskatoon Food Bank and Learning Centre, the food bank is seeing another record month in August, with large numbers of people relying on the organization for support.
It’s a trend O’Connor said started earlier this year, and has continued ever since.
“Those are definitely not records we want to break, but we are happy to be there to help,” O’Connor said.
Summer can be a hard time for everyone, O’Connor shared.
“We definitely see a drop in donations as folks are maybe at the lake or vacationing,” she said, adding that families are also dealing with getting back into routines and the costs of back-to-school purchases.
“We’re not top of mind. People are enjoying the last vestiges of summer.”
While people deal with added financial pressure, she said her organization is doing its best to keep up with demand. Contributions tend to pick up in the fall once routine returns to households, she noted.
In the meantime, O’Connor said the food bank’s strategy in recent years has had to adjust to ensure ends meet all throughout the year. That means more purchasing of food instead of relying as heavily on donations.
O’Connor said “amazing partners in the community” in the forms of produce distributors and grocers regularly step up and notice when the food bank might be having higher-than-expected numbers of people using the service.
“They’re being extra careful to watch for the donations they can share with us,” O’Connor shared.
At a time when so many people are relying on food bank services and more people struggling to put food on the table for their families, O’Connor said its important to be mindful of economic pressures and remember that food security is a shared responsibility.
Community support is paramount, O’Connor said, but times like this also raise important questions about changes needed to help meet people’s needs.