Hamilton food banks brace for ‘challenging’ combination of lockdown and post-holiday demand

Amid a very, very different" holiday season, Hamilton food banks are anticipating a spike in demand in January.

The holidays? It's absolutely challenging," said Karen Randell, operations manager at Hamilton Food Share. That need at Christmas is certainly, I think, heightened because there's so many more expenses that households have to absorb."

Since the pandemic began in March, the city's food banks have been working to keep up with the peaks and valleys of demand due to changing circumstances in people's lives.

There is always a need for a help," she said. Any donations that are coming in now may not make it to someone's table for Christmas Day, but it'll make it to their table next week."

Randell said January is typically the busiest month of the year.

That's often just because of how stretched households are in December," she said. So in January, there's always an increased access in our emergency food banks."

From April to September, Hamilton Food Share's food intake - in other words, goods donated or food purchased through cash donations - increased by nearly 60 per cent compared to previous years.

Randell said employment instability and the transition from CERB to EI are among the reasons why a family might use the food bank for the first time.

According to Feed Ontario, 12 per cent of Hamilton Centre's population used food banks in 2018 - one of the highest instances among electoral ridings in the province.

What we're seeing is an ongoing need in the City of Hamilton," Randell said, adding that the city's food bank use increased almost nine per cent in the year prior to the onset of the pandemic this past April.

So the need was already overwhelming prior to COVID."

Donors like FirstOntario Credit Union are helping address those needs. The financial institution is donating $50,000 to 11 food banks and food assistance programs in its service area.

At this time of year it is even more important for us to show people that we care," Lloyd Smith, CEO at FirstOntario, said in a Dec. 21 press release.

Good Shepherd, Neighbour to Neighbour Centre (N2N) and United Way Halton and Hamilton are among the Hamilton-area recipients of the funding.

During the holiday season, the Good Shepherd's Venture Centre food bank becomes a Christmas Marketplace, where those in need can browse stocking stuffers, warm clothes, as well as food.

Mark Tennant, the centre's program supervisor, says they have seen a 20 to 25 per cent increase in the number of people using the marketplace amid COVID-19.

N2N recently received $5,000 in support from FirstOntario - which also sponsors the organization's Coldest Night of the Year walk - a welcome gift in a year when many food drives and fundraisers have been cancelled.

Donations are down due to COVID," said Charlotte Redekop-Young, N2N's manager of emergency food services. They're just down."

She said the number of households accessing the food bank is similar to previous years, but the needs have changed.

Our home deliveries have increased exponentially," she said.

Home deliveries have at least doubled - from 40 or 50 to more than 100 a month - in the last year.

The number of first-time users has increased, too. From April to December of this year, 31 per cent of households using the food bank were new - up about five per cent from the previous year.

We're still seeing the demand," she said. And with another lockdown coming, we're just preparing for increased numbers."

Kate McCullough is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: kmccullough@thespec.com