Crucial time of year: food bank

Dozens of organizations and individuals are rallying the communities of HRM to donate time, money, and food for the region’s food banks.

It’s something Feed Nova Scotia’s executive director, Nick Jennery says is completely crucial this time of year.

“We couldn’t accomplish our Christmas hamper program without those events,” Jennery said. “To support our team we have a little more than 1,000 volunteers, if we didn’t have them, we couldn’t get the product put together and out the door. Without the community involvement, we would fall a long way short.”

The provincial non-profit organization provides food and support to 150 food banks, shelters and meal programs across Nova Scotia. They ship almost two million kilograms of food in an average year across their network.

On top of that, over the holidays they receive approximately 6,000 requests for ‘Christmas support’ from the department of community services and local food banks. Feed Nova Scotia is planning to ship 6,000 Christmas hampers, which includes a frozen turkey, fresh vegetables and an apple pie for families and individuals in need.

“Christmas can be a lonely time for folks, especially if they’re hungry,” he said. “What we try and do is to make sure that everybody has a little comfort, joy and hope in their lives, particularly around Christmas time.”

Jennery said requests for Christmas hampers is up slightly this year.

“It’s a big point of pride for the team, that out of the two million kilograms, the majority is perishable product,” he said. “We try as much as possible to ship a nutritious diet with fresh fruit and vegetables.”

Brian Kelly is the Christmas warehouse manager for Feed Nova Scotia. Located in Burnside, the facility handles all of the extra product the organization takes in during the holiday season.

“We’ve got produce lined up here for the Christmas hampers, We’ve got some excess product here we’ll be boxing up in bulk to be put into orders,” Kelly said. “It’s a big undertaking, and we have a lot of groups that come in during the month of December to sort it all.”

The warehouse is massive, with hundreds of boxes waiting to be sorted and shipped. The food comes in from a variety of sources, including the recent Stuff-A-Bus event, which saw eight Metro Transit buses filled with food, after 83 organizations signed up to take part in a collective food drive.

“I usually start at 7:30 in the morning, and I’ll probably be here until 8:30 tonight,” he said.

How much is reliant on volunteers? “100 per cent,” he said with a laugh.

The volunteers come through the doors from a variety of backgrounds, including families, private companies, school groups, community organizations, and more.

Nick Jennery said 36,000 people used the food bank system last year for support. He added that one ‘hopeful’ part of that number is the majority only utilized it between one and six times.

“People find themselves in circumstances, often beyond their control, like a lost job, mental or physical illness,” Jennery said. “This is the safety net that catches them.”

The number of people holding food drives and fundraisers for Feed Nova Scotia is up this year. Last month there were 92 third party events, with 86 during the same time last year.

For December, there is already 99 events but Jennery expects them to hit close to 125 community events before the year is through.

“We’re at 87 per cent right now, we really do need to keep the push going because we don’t want to come up short,” he said. “Hopefully this drive will continue.”