Donations have dropped considerably since Christmas and the Sunshine Coast Food Bank needs more help to feed the hundreds who come monthly for support.
Donations of both food and monetary donations are very low right now, said food bank co-ordinator Dale Sankey. We're still giving out food, but we're stretching it out. People are not getting the same amount of food as they used to.
The food bank relies solely on donations to provide needy Coast families with groceries, giving out about 1,230 food hampers a month.
People are very generous at Christmas time, but at this time of year people are looking at other things that are going on in their lives. They just don't realize that it's a year-round problem, so we need to keep it in the public, Sankey said, noting Hunger Awareness Week is coming up May 7 to 11.
The week used to be just a day-long event, but after much discussion at last year's annual general meeting of Food Banks Canada it was stretched to a week to allow the public more time to get informed and get onboard with the many ways to help.
It's a good time to get information out about how much it actually costs to eat for a month on the Coast, Sankey noted.
It costs a family of four $944.16 for groceries for a month on the Sunshine Coast. That's not including packaged food or eating out, she said.
The statistic comes from the report, Cost of Eating in British Columbia 2011, and Sankey said the figure accounts for about half of a person's income if they are on assistance and more than half if they are on disability or living on a pension. To put that into perspective, she said most people spend about half of their wages on housing.
The issue has gotten considerably worse in the last decade with the cost of food rising 38 per cent in the past 10 years.
People on family assistance have received zero increases in that time, Sankey said. There's a misunderstanding in our community that people can feed themselves.
There are many ways to support community members who need it and Sankey hopes everyone will pick one way to help out. The Sunshine Coast Food Bank is asking people to bring a bag lunch to work for at least one day during Hunger Awareness week and donate the money that would have been spent eating out to the food bank.
Other ideas for the Bag-It challenge include filling the lunch bag with food or a monetary donation. As always, customers buying groceries at IGA, Claytons or Extra Foods can purchase a $2 Share B.C. coupon, which gives the local food bank a $2 grocery credit at the store.
Another initiative that's being promoted with the start of spring is Grow a Row for the Food Bank.
Sankey said the food bank has a large capacity fridge and freezer to store fresh produce and she encourages local gardeners to think of the food bank when sowing seeds this spring.
It's not a lot of work for most gardeners, but it helps us out a lot, she said.
She also encourages Coasters to continue submitting their grocery receipts at stores that have the drop-off bins available.
For every $5,000 in grocery receipts we get $20 in store credit, Sankey said. We can get $400 worth of credit in one month from grocery receipts.
During Hunger Awareness Week Sankey is also calling on businesses to challenge one another to bring in the most donations for the food bank.
Already some workplaces have committed to food drive challenges including the Sechelt Health Unit and Home Care workers of Vancouver Coastal Health.
The Sunshine Coast Food Bank sits behind Sunshine Coast Community Services at 5638 Inlet Avenue and is open for donations to be dropped off Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The food bank gives out food every Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., alternating weekly between groceries and bread and produce.
For more information call the Sunshine Coast Food Bank at 604-885-5881 ext. 240.
