Sudbury, Ont., food bank faces 'exponential increase' in demand

A downtown food bank in Sudbury, Ont., now serves 1,200 households each month, which it calls an "exponential increase" over the last year.

Ro Mullen, an administrator with Inner City Home of Sudbury, said that in addition to greater demand, the food bank isn't getting as many food donations as it once did.

"Generally we get our food from donors in the community and from the Sudbury Food Bank, of course," Mullen said.

"Just recently they've been seeing a real decline in the amount of food that they've been able to get."

The Sudbury Food Bank collects and distributes food donations to 44 member agencies across the city. They include smaller food banks like Inner City Home of Sudbury and charitable organizations like the Salvation Army.

"Our allotment from them has actually been halved in the last few weeks," Mullen said.

"It's been incrementally getting lower and lower. So we've been having to purchase a lot more food out of donor funds to be able to keep up with the rising demand in client assistance."

She said they now purchase between 500 and 1,000 pounds (227 to 453 kilos) of food each week to make up for the reduced allotment from the Sudbury Food Bank.

Mullen said they are seeing clients who have never had to access their services before, including people who used to donate to them.

"These are people who have had savings, these are people who own their home, who have vehicles, have children and usually have a surplus," she said.

"And now they're finding themselves in a position where they don't have enough to put groceries on the table. So it's just been really heartbreaking to see that."

Growing demand

Dan Xilon, executive director of the Sudbury Food Bank, said they are now getting more than 17,000 requests for service from their member agencies. Last year, he said, they received 10,000 requests for service each month.

Xilon said demand for their services are greater than ever before and donations haven't been able to keep up.

"Sudburians are still doing what they can to help us out and we appreciate that," Xilon said.

"The problem is most of them don't have as much as they did before to help us out, so they help us a lot less."

Xilon said demand for the food bank tends to go up around Christmas time, but added it's impossible to predict what the need will be later in the year.

"I hope it's going to become more under control."