Donations flow to Parker Street food bank

The head of the Parker Street Food and Furniture Bank in Halifax says he has enough canned food and cash donations to make it through the week.

It's a big switch from Monday, when supplies were so low that Mel Boutilier worried the centre would have to close.

"Sobeys called me and they're very anxious to help us have the supplies we need to help the people that come to us," he told CBC News.

Several Good Samaritans also responded to the call for help.

The food bank — one of Halifax's busiest  — serves about 300 people a week. It's independent of Feed Nova Scotia.

The centre saw a drop in donations from its main supplier, Allied Reclamation Services Inc., a warehouse that distributes damaged goods from Sobeys and Co-op.

Sobeys says the amount of damaged food that goes to Allied Reclamation varies, as does the proportion of food that the charities receive.

In March, Allied got 89,000 pounds of food. Parker Street was given 15 per cent, or about 14,000 pounds. A month later, Parker Street got 16.5 per cent of the 52,000 pounds that went to the warehouse.

Then last month, Parker Street received 9,000 pounds of the 60,000 pounds of food that Allied Reclamation received.

Even with Tuesday's influx of food, Boutilier expects he will have to reach out to other suppliers to get through this difficult time.

"We have to look ahead. We'll get through this temporarily, but later we'll have to give study to how we're going to continue this operation," he said.