Feeding the hungry

By Lawrence Powell

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com



The Twelve Baskets Food Bank in Nictaux feeds, on average, 64 families a month. To the end of October this year, it had handed out 52,197 pounds of food, most of it donated or purchased locally.

That’s why a cheque for $500 from the staff employee fund at Soldiers Memorial Hospital last week came in so handy – the food bank has spent $9,692 (12,623 pounds) on food this year and Christmas is fast approaching. Every penny counts.

To the end of October Twelve Baskets had helped 642 families, up by 50 from the same period in 2005.

Marg Tracey, food bank manager, said there are a variety of reasons for the increased demand placed on food banks in the past few years and points to a decline in agriculture locally, transportation problems, the closure of businesses such as Britex and Avon Foods, and the lack of marketable skills as factors.

Staff at Soldiers Memorial raise money throughout the year by holding ‘Casual Fridays,’ and decide through staff suggestions what charities they will support. The food bank came up and was selected by a committee as a worthy recipient.

Glenda Robinson and Dale Illsley dropped the cheque off to Tracey and food bank board chairman Emile Fournier last Wednesday morning, just as the Feed Nova Scotia truck pulled in to make a delivery.

By the end of October Feed Nova Scotia had dropped off about 20,000 pounds of food to the Nictaux facility this year.

Tracey and Fournier believe the numbers at Twelve Baskets should be much lower, but the jobless rate in the area is driving people to social assistance and ultimately the food bank. And unfortunately they don’t see any positive change in the future. In fact most of their clients are on social assistance and increases in the number of families locally is consistent with the increase provincially.

Clients at Twelve Baskets range from those who feel the humiliation of having to resort to such extremes, to those who have fallen on hard times, and those who have become regular monthly users.

“It’s a very complex problem,� said Fournier who brings the situation into perspective by pointing out that Nova Scotia has a population just short of one million people. Food banks are feeding 40,000.

“You do the math,� he said.

Fournier said much of the poverty and hunger problem in Canada has to do with public perception – TV images from African countries or the Third World is the popular mindset.

“People think poverty and hunger is a foreign thing but it happens right here,� he said. “We don’t like to admit that we have the same hungry people here.�

Like most food banks in the province, Twelve Baskets was set up originally as a temporary measure. Many years later it is busier than ever with no end in sight.

Fournier said the plight of the hungry in Nova Scotia doesn’t get the exposure needed to instill in the public the message that their neighbours may be starving. The volunteers who are fighting the battle don’t have the resources necessary to do any more than raise food and funds and then pack boxes and make sure they get to starving families.

Twelve Baskets survives on contributions and the dedicated efforts of 15 to 20 volunteers who interview clients, stock shelves, and pack and hand out food boxes. And while Christmas is an important time of year, the need doesn’t end when the new year is rung in.

“It doesn’t stop,� said Fournier. “We feed people 12 months a year. That’s one thing about hunger – it doesn’t stop at Christmas.�