Waterloo region organizations hungry for donations to help feed kids

A Waterloo region charity that provides food to school children in need says it's hungry for donations as kids prepare to return to class.

Food4Kids Waterloo Region is currently providing food to more than 1,300 elementary school children at around 100 different public and Catholic schools – up from around 1,000 at this time last year – and it has started a waiting list for service, said Interim Executive Director Stephen Swatridge.

"The demand for service is way beyond our ability to provide the service," Swatridge said.

"We know that there are at least double that number of children who require the food."

Food4Kids provides its young clients with packages of groceries to take home from school each Friday to ensure they don't go hungry over the weekend and over school breaks.

$100 a month to feed one child

During the summer, it provides boxes of food and gift certificates to local grocery stores. 

But Swatridge said inflation, a decline in charitable giving, and a decline in volunteerism are all making it more challenging to keep up with soaring demand.

He urged anyone with the means to donate money to the organization to help it provide food for more children. 

"If someone were to donate $100 a month – $1,200 a year – that would feed one child for the full year," he said.

The Food Bank of Waterloo Region, which helps supply Food4Kids, has faced "a tough few years" of its own, said CEO Kim Wilhelm. 

"In the last year specifically, the food bank has seen a 45 per cent increase in the number of people accessing food support here in Waterloo region, and about 35 per cent of those people are children supported by our community food assistance network," Wilhelm said. 

"That equates to about 20,000 children in Waterloo region who are living in food insecure households."

At the same time, she said, rising costs have made it harder to raise donations.

"The bins that we have in our grocery stores — we've seen a significant decline," she said. 

'A different tone than the year before'

Meanwhile, the man who organizes a summer food drive aimed at helping hungry kids in Cambridge said his organization has had to moderate its ambitious fundraising goal this year, due in part to a lack of volunteer power.

Jamie Colwell said the Cambridge Food Drive Initiative is also facing soaring demand and a public less able to give.

Colwell said he is often moved by the generosity of the shoppers at the grocery stores where the initiative sets up its food drives.

But "there's definitely a different tone than the year before," he said.

"People are frustrated. It's not fun right now. Everyone's in a different boat but we're all going through the same storm. … People are having a difficult time." 

The Cambridge Food Drive Initiative had hoped to raise more than 8,000 kilograms of food this summer, but it will fall short, in part because it lacked the volunteers to conduct food drives at as many grocery stores as planned.

It also had to shut down its food drive in Ayr due to the tornado that touched down in the community. 

But Colwell said the initiative is still on track to exceed last year's fundraising goal.

It typically seeks to collect items such as fruit cups and nut-free bars for children, since they are necessities that seldom get donated to food banks, Colwell said.

This year, it was also asked to focus on collecting breakfast items for families such as cereal, oatmeal and pancake mix.