Food bank usage rises in Nova Scotia

A report issued by Food Banks Canada on Tuesday shows food bank use in Nova Scotia is up slightly from last year.

The report, called the HungerCount, presents results from more than 4,000 food banks and other food programs in every province and territory. At Feed Nova Scotia's warehouse, they are coming into the busiest time of the year.

The latest numbers released in the HungerCount show food bank use in Nova Scotia is up 0.3 per cent.

"What we do is we look at the month of March as a slice in time and take a look at the households that are supported by food banks", said Nick Jennery, the Executive Director of Feed Nova Scotia.

"When we look at Nova Scotia in particular, there were 20,000 people who required support from food banks," he said.

Feed Nova Scotia supplies food year-round for 44,000 people, although Jennery thinks the number is higher because he says more agencies are requesting food.

"If you're a single mom with two kids for instance, to admit that you can no longer feed your children and you're hungry — it's very difficult to go to the food bank and say 'you know what, I now need help,'" he said.

Some senior citizens get easily embarrassed when they need to ask for food.

51 per cent of the people using food banks in Nova Scotia are women, that's up 5 per cent over last year.

The number of children, under the age of 18, is also up by 2 per cent.

"That's a very disturbing fact in my mind", said Jennery. "About one third of the people that we support are children. That's a very high number."

More than 100,000 kilograms of food is shipped out of the Feed Nova Scotia warehouse each month. Jennery says it couldn't be done without the big contributions that come from grocery giants Sobeys and Superstore.

Food drives and donations from special events, like this weekend's Parade of Lights, are also big contributors.

While the numbers in Nova Scotia are up, other Atlantic provinces are down.

In Prince Edward Island the numbers dropped by 8.15 per cent, New Brunswick was down 3.1 per cent and in Newfoundland and Labrador, it dropped  5.9 per cent.

In Alberta, where the economy has tanked, visits to food banks were up by a whopping 23 per cent over a year ago.

Nationally, more than 850,000 people went to a food bank at least once a month.

More than a third of those using food banks — more than 300,000 — were children.