Northern Ontario’s Food Bank Crisis: Demand Surges in Sudbury & Sault Ste. Marie

Hello everyone, it's Eric here from Love the North and today we're talking about the food bank, the need for food and the increase in demand within Northern Ontario. On with us via Zoom, we have Natalie from the Sudbury Food Bank. Good morning Natalie. Good morning. And we have David from Sault Ste. Marie. Hello David. Good morning. Okay, so when it comes to the food bank, you know the food bank to me means a place where you can go to get food when you absolutely can't,(...) I guess, get at other places such as the grocery store for whatever reason it might be. What are you seeing in the increase in demand? Is there an increase? So I really appreciate you giving us an opportunity to talk about food insecurity because, and it's interesting, when you first reached out it was just to talk about what we're doing here in Sudbury but with Love the North I felt it was, and you did too, important to get a broader scope of how food insecurity is affecting Northern Ontario communities. What's interesting about Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury is that we are a distribution centre. So I know David and I are going to kind of talk about what that looks like and what our role is in the areas in our regions but,(...) you know, I've been in this role for nine months and I've been doing some number crunching for our board and in the first quarter of this year we had 572 new people using our food bank system and here in Sudbury we provide food and distribute food out to 22 food banks and 16 partner agencies across the city in the region. We also do some outlying communities in French River, Mark's Day, Massey, Killarney,(...) you know, Noelville, that area too.(...) But when I crunched numbers last week for our board meeting, that number had tripled. So over 1800 new people using the food bank and I was trying to be cautiously optimistic thinking that the spike over the summer might have been attributed to the kids not being in school and not having access to the snack and the breakfast programs.(...) But unfortunately I(...) kind of feel that I'm hopeful but it's probably just because there's just so much more cost of living that's affecting people.(...) Yeah,(...) it's bad. That's a large region, you know, to know that you're serving, you know, not just in Sudbury proper but all the outlying areas as well, like the reach is going(...) miles and miles and miles especially if you're hitting out to Massey. You said Massey? Yes, yeah. Yeah, that's almost an hour's drive out to Sudbury so that's quite the range. David, what about you, you know, in the Locke City? Yeah, so we would be similar to Natalie in that we are(...) a distribution center, right? So when I explain what Harvest Algoma does, I say we're essentially a food bank of other food banks

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in that we also serve, I would say close to 20 food banks and then about 40 programs and agencies across Algoma district. So in terms of our reach, we serve communities as far north as Wawa, which is about two and a half hours from Sudbury and as far east as Elliott Lake.(...) We are also seeing

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a spike in demand just like Natalie had said. I crunch the numbers today so in terms of year to date from January 2nd to yesterday,(...) we're up 34%(...) over where we were last year at this time. So it's close to and looking at in terms of total food,(...) around this time last year that was about 320,000 pounds that went out the door for last year and now we're up to about 427,000 pounds that's been on the door and that(...) has also been attributed to us hustling to get more food to Sudbury through a network of partners that we also work with. So(...) increased need definitely from cost to living through to the difficult economic challenges we're seeing in Sudbury(...) with tariffs imposed on us as well as a transformation at Algoma Steel, which has had a significant shift in employment and what that looks like in our region. So there's a few things affecting Sault Ste. Marie I think(...) maybe a bit differently than Sudbury.(...) Yeah I would see it as the local demographics as for the workforce is going to definitely alter(...) more people coming in just because of what's happened, the job situation within the local communities, let alone the outlying areas.(...) So it's interesting that you bring up the fact about employment because I think there's a misconception overall in the communities that it's people who relying on food banks are

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receiving Ontario Works or ODSP as their income or maybe just the homeless and similar to Harvick, Sault, and the Sioux, we support all of those programs with our homelessness initiatives as well like the Blue Door Soup Kitchen and the Mission and all of that through our deliveries.(...) But really the demographics show that the majority of people who are using our food banks are the working poor.(...) There's a lot of advocacy work that we do behind the scenes as well in addition to the distribution and making sure people aren't going hungry to do a lot of advocacy work to the province. And(...) I think just setting a good example ourselves where we are working towards getting our standards of excellence and accreditation(...) and part of that is paying our own employees a living wage and just leading by example and making sure that our own employees that work here at the warehouse, we do have a small workforce, there's only 14 and especially with getting out to all of those different agencies, we need to have reliable drivers and warehouse people to do all of that work. Like David was saying, hundreds of thousands of pounds of food.(...) It's interesting.(...) The demographics really do show that it's a working poor that a majority are using their food banks and that's why we're seeing those increases. The logistics is just important to get the food out and distributed as it is to get(...) the food in.(...) How(...) often do you run out of food?(...) We're very fortunate. Our organization has been around 38 years ago and I know food banks were initially started as a bridging for folks back 40 years ago but now it's become a mainstay and it's(...) tough. It's tough out there but we have never had to...(...) When we're getting low, we will reach out to our community and they've always really come good for us. We're really fortunate. We don't get any government funding.(...) Similar to most of the nonprofit organizations that are food banks or distribution centers like what we are are part of a bigger broader network like David was talking about. Feed Ontario is one and Food Banks Canada.(...) There's bigger, much bigger corporate partnerships that happen at those levels and with us being part of those memberships, we're able to get food delivered to us a lot of times at no cost(...) to appear in Northern Ontario. But in comparison to what our Food Bank partners in Southern Ontario get, it really is not... I mean it helps definitely but and we would be really desolate if we didn't have those partnerships(...) but the comparison is not even...

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Okay,(...) is there any criteria for people to come in?(...) Any basic criteria?

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To get to access a food bank? Yeah.(...) You know, well Food Banks Canada actually gives us ethical practices of distributing food and we're not supposed to be means testing folks. Like if you come to a food bank, basically we just need your address and in the past, you know, we're talking about all the different food banks. There would be some people, not all, but they would know this food bank's open on this day, I'm going to go here and then next week I'm going to go to that one. But because there really isn't enough food for the need, we've had to put something in place. It's called Link to Feed and it's connected to a person's address so that depending on what part of the area that you live in, that's the food bank that you will go to. So some of them are open every day, some of them, most of them are only open once a month for two hours in the middle of a Wednesday. So you can see how that would be difficult if you are working four or you're working two jobs. How are you going to get there in the middle of your work day?(...) So there's some different challenges there too but we really aren't supposed to be means testing folks. If they decide that they need help, we're going to help them and we literally exist to serve them. We exist to serve our food bank partners that are run by volunteers and(...) that's why we exist. I don't know if you want to add something to that, David. No, similarly to you, the food bank partners that we work with(...) follow those similar guidelines. Some have adopted this software like you say, like Link to Feed, but others are smaller rural food banks that are completely volunteer run and yet they do work so hard but their main challenge that we found is storage. So we're able to store and process a lot more food for these rural food banks because(...) their shelves are very small. It's usually like a few closets put together. So I guess that would be another big difference, what we do.(...) On a side note, are you seeing any,(...) is there any students or seniors that are on pension that are starting to use the food bank because out of desperate necessity?

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Definitely. Here in Sudbury, we(...) have Cambridge College, we have College Boreal, we have Laurentian University, we have a special food pantry program for those students.

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And our demographics also show over the last few years, we've had an influx of seniors using the food banks.(...) Previously to this role, I was assistant manager at an older adult center. And when I saw those demographics on the news, I wanted to be proactive. And we actually arranged a food drive in the month of June, which is seniors month, just to bring awareness to that. And in our world, in food bank world, our warehouse, well, at least here, and I feel it's similar, maybe David can chime in on this too. But our warehouse is pretty empty right now. Like there's people forget about us, unless we're really, really reminding them about the need. And that's on us to just, you know, remind folks, like we don't just need food drives at Christmas. People are hungry all through the year. And it's important to just get the word out. And we're so fortunate to have support from our media outlets and local businesses just to help us get the word out. But, you know, we don't want to oversaturate the message either. But I think just, you know, strategic(...) outreach throughout the year, just reminding folks like, hey, look at the state of our warehouse, we really do need your help.(...) Yeah, it's, it is a similar look when I look in our warehouse as well,(...) as through our larger partners, like second hardest, they're, they're very good to support us with with full transport loads of food. However, the need in Ontario has also grown significantly. So(...) the frequency of the trucks has has remained but the need has increased so greatly. So what we are also doing is that we are working with our food bank partners who buy a lot of food at grocery stores, right, just to keep up to their own demands. So what we've done is we partnered with them to do wholesale bulk ordering of food. And one of the partnerships that has been key with that(...) is a company called Atamark. They're based in southwestern Ontario, and they're able to get shipments of wholesale foods, like pastas, canned goods, but we're able to work with our food bank partners so that they could get a lower cost because like what they were doing before is they would be going to grocery stores, and then going to the line again, just to just to get a sale, right. And these people like work so hard, we don't want to see them like wasting their time at a grocery store with dealing with sales. So that's another way that we're addressing some of these challenges that we're seeing in terms of getting volumes up. Let's say your typical transport 53 footer comes in,(...) empties all the food into the warehouse. How just so we can get a sense of what a transport will feed, like how long will that last? I'd say it depends on what's on that transport.(...) But I(...) think if the items are such that our food bank partners are giving out on a regular basis, that transport would be gone from our warehouse, I would say in about two,(...) probably just under two weeks, I would say. Okay. Okay. When(...) David asks about when David mentions about what's on the transport, that's a really important part because I think, you know,(...) with our partnerships with Feed Ontario or, you know, Second Harvest, all of those different deliveries that we're getting,

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sometimes we might have an influx of jalapeno flavored goldfish crackers.

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Like we were never sure what's coming in. That's just an example. This time of year is wonderful for us. It's bountiful because we've got so many farms down in Leamington area that are just overabundance of produce and(...) shelf stable produce that has a longevity shelf life like potatoes, rutabagas, carrots, those kinds of things. And we're getting them in 50 pound bags. So in our warehouse, we will glean it all. We will package that into smaller amounts so that it can stretch further. There's a whole logistical process that goes into that. But if you have the space, we're very fortunate to have the space. We don't have to deny any of those kinds of deliveries and it can last like a couple months where we're consistently giving out this produce and this bulk of produce. So it's exciting for the fall to come in because we know we can anticipate. And it's wonderful because at the beginning of the interview here, we were talking about, you know, hundreds of thousands of pounds of food. Last year, just here in Sudbury, we diverted 450,000 pounds of food out of the landfill. And so that is through a partnership that we have with grocery stores.(...) And we're seeing an uptick of some people who have gardens and they have excess produce as well coming in and bringing a bit of bounty. Of course, the quantities aren't there, but people want to help. But diverting the food out of landfills is one part where we're making sure that we're not, you know, food's not going to waste. So if you see, you know, places like Costco or different grocery stores have different standards of what they're able to give out to their customers, we're getting it at very late stage, but it's still salvageable. And that's process that we go through so that we're reducing waste of(...) food and just making sure that people can have access to that. So there's a lot of logistics in that as well, because again, you have to,(...) you know, plan it according to when that volunteer food bank is going to be open to make sure that you're not wasting that food and anything that is not able to be given to humans. We're making that into compost and also giving it to our farmers for their livestock and the feed. So I think that those partnerships are crucial for people to understand that that's in place as well. We really, it really is a big operation.(...) For anyone in the general population that has(...) anything that they can bring in, can they just bring it in at any time or is there, yeah, is the food bank open? Is like the donation area, what's it like? Yeah, I mean, we take donations every day at the warehouse. We're open Monday to Friday during the day. We get an influx of people usually during their lunch hour to kind of curb the lull of things coming in and the volumes. We actually kicked off an Amazon wish list as well. So people can actually just from the comfort of home, go on to our Amazon wish list, there's about 50 items on there. And it can be delivered free of charge through your Amazon Prime account and have food delivered. So it's been a gradual uptake to that. I think we can do a little bit more promotion and awareness, but it was just it was a unique way to just try to reach a different demographic of people that aren't normal or regular donors to us in some capacity. And cash is always favored because like David was saying, we can stretch that(...) with palette orders and warehousing and that kind of thing. But we're not going to say no. Some people are stressed out about the quantities or the type of products we, and we typically just say this is what our wish list is for each month. And we rely on the community(...) to help us with that. But they can make those donations at any time. They can just walk in.(...) To(...) us, donations when we're open.(...) And we have been getting a lot of produce donations with the fall period as well from farmers and gardeners. It's been a good apple year in our region. So it's a lot of apples, but I'm very fortunate(...) that we have a large commercial kitchen where our chef is able to process a lot of this produce and turn it into meals. So we(...) through Harvest Algoma, we serve meals about, we feed about 60 people a day at(...) our local men's shelter.(...) And so one delivery will go out every week. And so it's like usually for each meal, a vegetable, starch, and(...) some protein. So yeah, that's(...) I guess a bit different from Sudbury Food Bank in a way.(...) Yeah, it's a bit of a value added there. As you know,(...) like Dave and I first met in February, it was only a couple months into(...) my role here. And we talked about similarities and our challenges between the two larger communities in Northern Ontario. And part of that was meeting that need. So(...) I've actually been successful in getting a grant to expand what our kitchen is doing. So there's going to be more being released at the end of October of what that's going to look like. But more using the food that's been going to our farmers and repurposing that into ready-made meals to supplement what we're giving to our food bank partners. So cases of black bananas aren't going to go to the farmer anymore. It's going to be banana bread, right? So we're going to have a staff person and also volunteers helping to make the meals. And in order to sustain that, we're also going to expand it so that it's a social enterprise where typically at Christmas, we'll see different businesses that will go to our mission or soup kitchen and donate $1,000. And they're wearing their swag with their logo and their hat. And they're saying this is what we're doing to contribute to the community. The way that my idea of how to keep the kitchen operational is to invite our local business partners and different organizations to come in, donate a donation, have a tour of the food bank, understand the logistics of what we're doing, and then roll up their sleeves at the end of that tour and actually help in the kitchen and make that food. And then it's a team building experience and it's experiential relationship building beyond the money, beyond the donation. And I think that's where we're seeing trends and nonprofits and supporting and sponsorships is that it's not just about the give, it's about year-round relationships. And we also did that with the Smile Cookie campaign as well. And we did over 11,000 Smile Cookies with the Tim Hortons campaign that realized a lot of extra revenue for us. And again, those partnerships so that when we go to these people, they're like, "Oh, I love what you're doing. This made me feel so good to give back." And it's that value-added relationship building that always needs to be part of what we're doing at the food bank because we rely on our community.(...) David,(...) any last words from the food bank in Sault Ste. Marie?(...) I would say that(...) now is a really good time to have conversations with(...) municipal councillors and leaders across our region.

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As we know, affordability is going to be one of the big items of discussion.(...) For us, we try to have these dialogues through a group called El Goma Food Security Network,(...) just to bring to light(...) the collaboration that happens between organizations to address this issue.(...) While the municipality does not necessarily fund things in certain ways, it certainly has made a big difference for Harvest El Goma as we were going through some challenges a few years ago. So I would just say that we need to be(...) more mindful as ratepayers just around(...) the conversations we're having with these(...) leaders or those who want to become leaders, just about how great and dire this issue has becoming in communities. So I would end there.

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Okay. Natalie, any(...) closing words?

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Yeah.(...) I wear two hats.(...) Dave knows that as well. I am a city councillor here in Greater Sault Ste. Marie. I feel there's a lot of(...) similar kind of connections that I have having those two hats. I also sit on public health. I am part of the Food and Security Network here as well and the policies(...) with public health, United Way, a bunch of different partners, our university, the research(...) departments there, just kind of understanding how food insecurity is really impacting our communities.(...) In Ontario, the only municipality that I know(...) that fully funds their food bank system is(...) Northumberland County. I know that Sault Ste. Marie(...) has a bit of support going on there, but there's really nothing else that I'm aware of. We're kind of on our own. We're on our own little island here in food bank world and it's really impacting quality of life. And when people are poorer, when people are struggling, we're seeing our health care, we're seeing our mental health, we're seeing,(...) you know, increases of domestic violence and all of these different things that come with poverty and food insecurity. And I think we just really need to take a concerted look at that.(...) It really is important. And having these conversations is equally important for awareness for folks to just see how(...) all of the costs of living in the world are impacting people, everyday people, all of our neighbours. We don't call people who come to our(...) food banks clients. They're our hungry neighbours. And I think that we need to start seeing it like that. We're all in it together. We've definitely been able to sustain ourselves this long,(...) almost 40 years in because of the generosity of everyday folks making daily, monthly donations. People will give part of their payroll deductions to us. We have people who give immemorial donations to us. There's all kinds of ways that people can contribute, give back their time, help their local food banks. Our volunteer food banks are struggling. Many of them have been helping and volunteering for decades. They're tired. We need some new people to come and help so that we can(...) help feed our healthy neighbours. So with that, I'll end it. Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about this subject. I feel it's really, really important and timely.(...) Okay, David and to St. Marie, Natalie and Sudbury from the Perspective Food Banks. Thanks for joining us today and let us do our part and help to get the word out.