Local food banks are feeling the pinch

District support for food banks not enough, district chair says

MUSKOKA - The District of Muskoka is spending $10,000 of taxpayers’ money on food banks and supper clubs, but some say that’s not enough, especially during the winter months.
The District of Muskoka supported nine food banks and supper clubs in 2012 in Bracebridge, MacTier, Port Severn, Baysville, Bala, Huntsville and Gravenhurst.
District Chair John Klinck said he’s happy to see the cross-section of Muskokans being helped, but he wants to see more district money put into the food coffers.
“I believe that we need to bulk this up just a little bit because quite frankly, I’m embarrassed,” he said. “And if I was to look back a few years with my wife and I with seven kids, we spent more than this annually.”
Though more Muskokans are struggling as the Ontario Works numbers continue to increase, Valerie Ceschia-Hart said the Gravenhurst Supper Club is seeing average numbers of around 70 people each night this year as they have in past years.
Every Thursday night throughout the year volunteers prepare food for 120 people, sending the leftovers home with families in need who stay to help clean up.
“We have occasionally run out of funding, then we just kind of run in the red until somebody comes to save us,” she said.
“We always struggle with funding.”
The supper club receives $1,500 from the district each year and donations of money and food from community members, businesses, service groups and fundraisers. One night in December they used leftovers from a turkey dinner that was served to the women of the United Church in Gravenhurst where the supper club meets. Another night a local restaurant offered to cook for the supper club.
The club has a number of volunteers who return week after week to serve snacks and a warm meal to those who need food and those who attend purely to socialize.
“We’ve never turned anybody away. I think one night we ran out of food, but we just ran to the grocery store and bought some cooked chicken, so we survived. It was not a good feeling by any stretch of the imagination,” Ceschia-Hart said.
In the weeks before Christmas the snack table was laden with extra desserts and baked goods that local grocery stores and bakeries drop off. That changes after Christmas, Ceschia-Hart said, when the club sometimes runs in the red and has to “beg and plead” service groups, churches and sometimes the district for money. Ceschia-Hart said they are in a better position than they were last year and she is hoping there will be more donations.
“We usually see a drop in donations and volunteers, unfortunately, as the winter goes on. In December everyone wants to volunteer. In January and February people are cold and I don’t think they want to truck out at night. February sucks,” Ceschia-Hart said.
They are also outgrowing their facilities and small storage room at the church, but are putting any funding they can get into food.
The Bracebridge Out of the Cold Program also received $1,500 in 2012 from the district to help fund three programs which run at the Bracebridge United Church, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and the Bracebridge Legion on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays respectively throughout the winter.
Nancy Knox, reverend for the United Church and part of the Out of the Cold steering committee, said people have been very generous to the program and they have not been left wanting for donations.
“We always see an upsurge of giving in the month of December, certainly here at Bracebridge United Church, and we’re grateful for that because when we aren’t receiving things in February, we still have that to fall back on,” she said.
Over the course of the five years the program has been running, she said there has been a gradual increase of people who see the program as part of their support network.
“There’s a core group of people that we expect to see,” she said. “We know that they’ll be coming, this is where they dine on Tuesday nights.”
Besides the usual food banks and supper clubs, the district supported two new food banks this year, one in Baysville and one in Bala, with $750 each. Both the Port Severn and MacTier food banks received $500 each from the district
Lake of Bays Coun Bob Lacroix said the new food bank in Baysville began this year on community support alone because they didn’t know the district provides funds. Now they are receiving support from the district, but he said it should be more.
“You look at this and $500, I would say everyone in this room would spend that on Christmas supper alone,” he said.
Bracebridge Coun. Steve Clement suggested that need will become apparent as winter digs in.
“Come January, people still get hungry, but people don’t give,” he said.
District staff will research the issue to see if there is any potential funding they can acquire and assess the needs in the various programs, then staff will provide a report to the district social services committee in the coming weeks.

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