An annual community-wide food collection drive is helping the Terrace Churches Food Bank meet an increased demand, says food bank president Paul Moravec.
For more than a decade locally, volunteers have dropped off sturdy empty paper bags at homes around town and then several days later returned to pick them up containing non-perishable donations from householders.
It's part of a province-wide campaign called the B.C. Thanksgiving Food Drive organized locally by the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints and the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The bags are provided by Save on Foods.
Food drive coordinator Annette Krumins said 1350 kilograms of food in 247 bags was collected and delivered to the Garage community space in a truck provided by Bandstra Transportation.
"We drop off the bags usually the Tuesday or Wednesday before and then we pick them up Saturday morning and when we pick up the bags we leave little thank you notes so people know that the bag has been picked up," she said. This year the pick up date was Sept. 21. Anyone who missed putting their bag out can still fill it up and drop it off at Save On Foods.
This is the second year Krumins has been the coordinator and plans on increasing the number of collection routes next year.
Moravec said it is the most widespread collection effort in that it is community-based.
"We have lots of schools, organizations, churches, businesses but this is throughout the community," he said.
Moravec added that the Thanksgiving collection will help stock the food bank's shelves as demand has increased from even a year ago.
"It's always going up," he said of those coming through the doors of the Garage community space on Kalum for the food bank's once a week distribution every Monday.
"We now have 200 households every Monday. Last fall it was 170," Moravec said.
The make up of the food bank's clients has also changed with 25 to 35 per cent now being newer immigrants to the community. That's up from less than 10 per cent of the past several years.
Moravec said newer immigrants, just as with others in the community, are feeling the effects of an increase in the cost of living.
"You come in the door, we're going to give you food," he added.
The one difference from the Thanksgiving community collection is that the type of food is often different from items the food bank normally stocks.
"We get a whole lot of variety, items clients would not get normally here or items they would not normally buy so for those we have a miscellaneous station," Moravec said.
