Local food banks brace for busy 2025 as need expected to increase
CBC K-W's Make The Season Kind campaign runs until the end of the month
As 2024 comes to a close, The Food Bank of Waterloo Region says need in the community is expected to continue to grow in 2025.
"The need for food assistance in our community remains at an all-time high, with one in eight households needing help," Kim Wilhelm, the CEO of the food bank, said in an email to CBC Kitchener-Waterloo on Friday.
"Whether through donations, volunteering, or raising awareness, every action helps us provide vital assistance to those experiencing food insecurity," she added.
The Food Bank of Waterloo Region saw more than 25,000 people in need of food assistance in October, a record for the local agency.
In one year, Wilhelm says the food bank has seen a "staggering" increase of 26 per cent of people needing support, from 58,000 individuals last year to 73,000 this year.
"Our community continues to face increased challenges around the high cost of living, job insecurity, high housing costs and other economic pressures. This upward trend indicates a worsening food insecurity situation over the next year," she said.
"The number of individuals visiting eight times or more has also increased by 17 per cent since last year, indicating that the food bank is increasingly seen as a necessary resource rather than just a temporary solution in an individual's life."
The challenges are also being felt by other nearby food banks.
In Guelph, the food bank went to city council for the first time in its history to request funding in the 2025 budget, the food bank's managing director Carolyn McLeod-McCarthy previously told CBC K-W.
The Guelph Food Bank is seeing more than 4,000 people each month, a record high for the organization which opened in 1989.
"The need has more than doubled in two years," she said. "We would need three to four locations in central Guelph alone just to accommodate those people in need for food access closer to where they live."
'Families are going hungry'
Carolyn Stewart, the CEO of Feed Ontario, said earlier this month that food banks are starting to see donors become clients and their resources are dwindling.
"The safety net is starting to unravel," she said after Feed Ontario released their annual hunger report.
"Many of our food banks are struggling to keep up with demand and make sure that they have sufficient resources to be able to meet that demand in their community."
The report by Feed Ontario found 40 per cent of all food banks in the province have reduced the amount of food they are able to give to people in need, and half of them have decided to cut services to keep up with resource shortages.
The report found more than a million people accessed services at a food bank in Ontario. That's a 25 per cent increase over 2023 and the eighth consecutive year of growth.
Food banks do not have the resources to adequately meet the level of need in our province," Stewart said in a press release.
"Even with the help of food banks, people and families are going hungry."
CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's annual campaign called Make The Season Kind raises food and funds for The Food Bank of Waterloo Region throughout the month of December.
The kick-off event for Make The Season Kind was The Evening Edition — a spin on CBC K-W's morning show The Morning Edition with host Craig Norris — was held on Friday, Dec. 6. The show raised more than $14,000.
So far this month, the campaign has raised $20,917.10 and 194 pounds of food donations, which provides 41,996 meals.
With files from Kate Bueckert