Maritime food banks focusing on post-pandemic pressures

HALIFAX -

For his birthday this month, nine-year-old Dawson Horsman did what he's done of the past three years – raise money to buy food for those in need.

This time, he outdid himself, gathering so much food he was running out of space for it at home.

"We were having it in my room, then we brought it into the living room, and then the hallway, and then we made a giant pyramid," says Dawson.

His final donation to Feed Nova Scotia was a whopping 780 kilograms of food.

"Because it's more important for people to have food, than it is to have presents," he says.

After making it through the height of the pandemic, including lockdowns and volunteer shortages, Maritime food banks are hoping that kind of generosity continues, as the effects of the pandemic will likely be felt for years to come.

"Food banks are planning not just how we're going to meet our clients' needs today and next week," says the executive director of Greener Village in Fredericton, "but we're planning on next year, and five years down the road."

"We know things are going to continue to change as we continue to come to grips with the pandemic, and the after-effects, and the tightening finances that may come as a result of some of the pandemic challenges," says Alex Boyd.

Boyd says the pandemic increased awareness about the problem of food insecurity. It also brought to light the increasing need for children and their families to access food bank services.

Experts estimate Canadian children make up 35 per cent of food bank recipients, even though they make up only two per cent of the overall population.

In Nova Scotia, that need is felt even more keenly, with one in four children in the province living in poverty, the third highest rate in Canada.

"Households with children are more likely to be food insecure in the pandemic than households without children," says Karen Theriault of Feed Nova Scotia. "And so we are concerned about the impact the pandemic has had on those kids and their families."

That need is the reason why Food Banks Canada has ramped up its "After the Bell" summer food program this year, aiming to distribute 150,00 healthy food kits throughout the country, including in the Maritimes.

Feed Nova Scotia will hand out more than 10,000.

While that will meet the immediate need of families in the province, Theriault says the pandemic brought the problem of food insecurity to the forefront, and long-term solutions are what's needed next.

"Poverty and food insecurity are crises in our communities and have been for decades," says Theriault.

"Affordable childcare, affordable housing, those are the kinds of solutions we're looking for," she adds, noting Nova Scotians will have an opportunity to make those issues a priority when they go to the polls for the provincial election August 17.

"This is a big opportunity…to challenge our elected officials, to say 'what are you doing to address poverty and food insecurity here at home?'"

As food banks move forward towards whatever the "new normal" may look like, Boyd says support from the public is as important now as it was at the beginning of the pandemic.

"Donating food is obviously helpful," he says, "it's always helpful to make a financial donation, because we're actually able to buy food at wholesale prices so we can use that dollar and take it further."

But Boyd says keeping the conversation going about food insecurity, is also key.
"Talk about it with people you know…because we know that when the profile of food banks increases and people see what we're doing, and they appreciate what we're doing, then the volunteering and the donations and the support increase."

"That's one way everyone can be part of the fight against food insecurity."