Toronto-area food banks struggle to reach donation goals as Thanksgiving looms

As annual Thanksgiving food drives ramp up, organizations are worried about getting enough donations during their fundraisers to meet this year's record demands for their services.

Meghan Nicholls, CEO of Food Banks Mississauga, says the organization is nowhere near meeting its Thanksgiving fundraising target. It increased its goal this season to $1 million, up from $750,000 last year, in response to a huge demand for food bank services in Mississauga.

"We have a long way to go. I'm concerned heading into the weekend that we're only at 40 per cent," Nicholls said.

"We're hoping to not need to have some tough conversations about what we may need to do if we don't achieve this goal on Thanksgiving." 

Demand has been growing at many Greater Toronto Area food banks for months. Food bank users are increasingly employed but struggling to put food on the table, something many food banks and food insecurity researchers warned was likely to continue to be a problem throughout 2023. However, food banks are struggling to keep up, prompting formal and informal calls for donations as supplies, or funds in some cases, have reached critical lows. 

At Food Banks Mississauga, there are currently 36,000 food bank users each year, says Nicholls. Before the pandemic, less than two per cent of Mississauga residents used the food bank — now five per cent are using the services, she says.

Nicholls says the organization purchases about 20 per cent of the food it gives out. But unless its Thanksgiving fundraising effort, set to wrap up on Oct. 15, goes well, it may need to consider if it can buy some items or deliver food to the agencies it serves in the months ahead.

'We could fill up the Rogers Centre about 7 times'

Last month, Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto saw about 275,000 client visits. Prior to the pandemic, that number was between 60 and 65,000. CEO Neil Hetherington says clients can visit up to four times a month. He says 12,000 new people are now coming to the food bank for the first time each month. Prior to the pandemic that number was below 1,000.

"We could fill up the Rogers Centre about seven times — that's how many people we are feeding on a monthly basis," said Hetherington.

Daily Bread is trying to raise $3.8 million and 102,965 kilograms of food to meet what it's been calling "crisis" level demand.

"We have reduced our food goal this year, knowing that the price of food is going to make it more difficult for somebody to contribute," he said.

Nicholls says Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie's office has been helping to drive donations, but that the provincial government needs to step up to address the root cause of food bank use: poverty. She says for a large swath of users, improving social assistance rates for the Ontario Disability Support Program and Ontario Works would help. 

Hetherington is also calling on the province to build more affordable housing and do more to end precarious employment. 

Government raised ODSP rates in last year

In an emailed statement, Kristen Tedesco, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, said, "Our government continues to invest in programs and services to make life more affordable for everybody across Ontario so that nobody gets left behind."

The government has increased ODSP rates by almost 12 per cent since September 2022, Tedesco said.

She says the government also spent $96 million on the Ontario Trillium Foundation's Resilient Communities Fund, which provides grants to non-profits including food banks. And it has increased funding by $1.1 million to the Student Nutrition Program and First Nations Student Nutrition program for a total of over $29 million.

The Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit — a program intended to provide improved access to housing assistance to households in need through shorter wait times and more housing choice — also received a $42 million boost, the spokesperson said.

Hetherington says more is needed from government. But for now, he says he remains hopeful that the public and organizations will step up to help Daily Bread this weekend however they can.

He says for those unable to donate food or money, spreading the word about the need for the government to do much more can help.

"Not everybody can contribute to the food raising or the fundraising," he said. "But everybody contributes by being part of the movement that's calling an elected official and saying, 'Enough.'"