Cushioned by volunteers, Vaughan Food Bank to serve 500 families this Christmas

Up to six truck drivers, who can volunteer on a continual basis, still needed

Yorkregion.com
December 14, 2018
Dina Al-Shibeeb

As Christmas nears, Vaughan Food Bank has no problem attracting volunteers to supply about 1.5 million meals a year.

“We have about 40 regular volunteers and about 5,000 temporary,” Vaughan Food Bank executive director Peter Wixson said. “The only issue sometimes is to find the right kind of volunteers.”

Wixson explains the math behind the figure: providing 2,000 people with two meals a day, multiplied by 365 days, equals almost 1.5 million meals a year.

With the spirit of volunteerism, Vaughan’s Food Bank is also going to serve 500 families this Christmas, said Marilia Bento, one of the volunteers, who is currently a mentor at TRIEC Mentoring Partnership.

Three years ago, Bento slowed down from her big role as a managing director of equity capital markets at a bank and decided to volunteer to give back to society.

Bento previously volunteered at Humanity first, which deals with disaster relief around the world, among other charitable functions, including building a school in Haiti. But still, it didn't get as much attention in terms of volunteers as Vaughan Food Bank does.

The high-profile volunteer, who is also a director of Emerita Gold Corp., mulled over the reasons. She says that maybe because Vaughan Food Bank has a simple message and function its impact hits home more, as it's local. 

Unlike other places, Vaughan Food Bank gets a huge influx of people wanting to volunteer in advance of the festive season, Bento said. At around this time of the year, “people for some reason feel more generous,” she added.

Truck drivers needed

While having a good number of volunteers is not an issue, continuity does matter.

“We have trucks on the roads every day, and finding people to do this on a continuous basis is sometimes pretty hard,” Wixon said. “Other than that, we are going to advertise for this for the first time,” most probably after Christmas.

He said the Food Bank needs about five to six truck drivers.

When asked about Christmas specifically, Wixson said “people want to volunteer probably for the wrong reason sometimes. A lot of them say they want to (give) back for Christmas, they want to serve Christmas meals and something like that.”

The Food Bank screens people in order receive 28 days' food supply by checking their IDs, proof of income and even rental agreements. “It is not just 'walk in and get food,' ” he explained.

Currently, the Food Bank is readying for its Christmas hampers program “plus toys, the potatoes, the carrots, the turkey.”

“We bring volunteers from 15 up to 30 people, from the corporate sector, they are paid by their company. This is how we get our hampers done and work done for Christmas. They also come to sort everything we collected for the Christmas food drive.”

The Food Bank is also collaborating with some churches for a pyjama program.

Higher demand for food this year

Other challenges include the increased need for food, even by people who are already working but can’t afford to be fully self-sufficient due to their low wages.

“We also have a lot of new immigrants, and they have a lot of children,” he said. “It’s increasing all the time; it's not going backward.”

Among other challenges is the Canada Post strike, which had initially derailed the receipt of cheques from some donors.

“In 30 years, we never ever had to fundraise. Now we are getting to this point this year, maybe with the postal strike--we are the only food bank of our size anywhere that is 100 per cent volunteer.”

While the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CPUW) was ordered back to work on Nov. 27, Canada Post said in a statement that it has a backlog of six million parcels, making it unclear whether packages will be delivered on time.

Asked why these donors can't show their generosity through an online transfer of money, Bento said: “There are still older people in their 70s who like to give cheques.”

“My mom and dad don’t like to do transfers,” she said. “Corporations give the biggest. We don’t ask for money ... they have money to allocate to charities, but they decide which charity is best to donate to.”

While Bento was talking to York Region Media in a phone interview on Thursday, Dec. 6, Wixson was busy dealing with students and a volunteering group from RBC.

Thursday and Friday are the two days when new clients and families come in.

As groups come in, Bento said, “We can’t supervise more people.”