Orangeville, Ont., rallies as food bank usage jumps 143%
‘We take care of one another,’ says mayor organizing food donation competition she hopes to make annual
When Heather Hayes began working at the Orangeville Food Bank in 2015, she says it supported around 300 people a month.
Now, she says, the food bank is supporting nearly 1,400 people a month.
"More and more people are having to access the food bank because the cost of living is just unacceptable at this point," said Hayes, the food bank's executive director.
She says the situation is alarming, as the bank's been struggling to keep shelves stocked enough to meet the growing demand. It's an issue provincewide, with Feed Ontario reporting last month that a million people living in Ontario turned to food banks over a 12-month period starting in the spring of 2023. In Toronto, Daily Bread food bank is sounding the alarm about what it's calling "crisis-level" food insecurity.
The Orangeville Food Bank receives around 20,000 pounds worth of donations a month, according to Hayes, but is giving away 50,000 pounds worth of food each month.
The gap is "unsustainable for us," Hayes said.
The town is stepping up. When Mayor Lisa Post heard about the food bank facing a crunch, she decided to organize the Rooted in Community food drive — a friendly food donation competition.
The drive will see the town split into 17 zones — and the zone that donates the most pounds of food will win bragging rights.
"I knew that if I challenged the community and came up with a fun, creative idea the community would rally together," said Post.
"That's just what our community does: we support one another."
Within 24 hours of announcing her Rooted in Community initiative, Post said she already had a team of volunteers in each of the city's 17 zones ready to go.
"The Rooted in Community drive is really about bringing all of those community members together and being rooted in the fact that we take care of one another in our community," she said.
Mark Parrish is one of those eager community members — ready to use his own vehicle to help collect items and drive it to the food bank. He says he's also willing to drop donations off directly to community members who need it, but for whom mobility may be an issue.
"I'm privileged, I can put food on my table, but there's others in this town who can't," Parrish said. "So, let's see what we can do to help them as much as we can."
Staff at the Orangeville Food Bank say the number of people coming through the door has risen dramatically over the years.
Over the past four years, they say the bank has seen a 143 per cent increase in people accessing its service from January to September.
Food insecurity is no longer an issue impacting only people who are low income, Hayes said.
"Sixty families came in last month and they actually owned their own house — That's a stat we would not have tracked before," she said. "It's all of the people you think, plus all of the people you don't."
Hayes says the issue of food insecurity has never been about food, but instead about policy. She says tackling issues such as housing affordability, low wages and job security need to be dealt with first in order to see a change in demand for food banks.
Meanwhile, Post says she hopes to turn the drive into an annual event.
The Rooted in Community Food Drive takes place on Saturday, Oct. 5.