New delivery driver, walk-in freezer help Food Bank of York Region manage food insecurity during holidays

Monetary donations still needed to help buy food for families facing food insecurity

Yorkregion.com
Dec. 21, 2020
Aileen Zangouei

The Food Bank of York Region sees this time of the year as "A Season of Hope," and is hoping members of the community will help them in their aim to feed families in need.

“Due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increased demand for food assistance from seniors, families with children, refugees, people on social assistance, and those who have been laid off or lost their jobs,” said Alex Bilotta, the CEO of the Food Bank of York Region (FBYR).

The FBYR delivers and distributes food across its network of over 80 food pantries across the region, and with the help of their volunteers and generous donations from the public, managing the increase in demand has been possible.

However, amid the second lockdown due to COVID-19, the demand is not expected to cease.

So far, the FBYR has received many inquiries from individuals and corporations regarding food drives and volunteering; however, they are asking for people who have the means to consider supporting them by donating monetary gifts.

According to a Dec. 16 press release, monetary donations are vital to the FBYR, a non-profit organization, in helping them collect, deliver and distribute more food items across its network. Donations will also help them with their direct delivery program that was created during the pandemic to help get fresh food to the doors of people facing food insecurity.

The FBYR also received an $82,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, one of Canada’s leading granting foundations, which was put toward purchasing a larger walk-in cooler and freezer in June.

The need for the larger walk-in freezer came at a time when storage space was limited for healthy frozen food; with it, the FBYR has been able to better store the significant increase in fresh and frozen products being donated by local retail stores, farmers and food manufacturers.

“The new walk-in cooler and new walk-in freezer increases our capacity threefold,” Bilotta said, adding that “currently our freezer is almost full with chicken, salmon, cod and hams. With long before dates, we can distribute the product slowly so our network partners don’t get overwhelmed with product. Most of our network partners don’t have the capacity to take much frozen food.”

The new cooler is almost three times as big as the old one, and the freezer is over three times as big.

“The Ontario Trillium Foundation has been very supportive of our food bank since our inception in 2012,” Bilotta said.

“Our primary focus has been to provide healthy fresh and frozen food products to our growing network of community food pantries, social service agencies and housing co-ops.

Health communities are populated with healthy residents that regularly consume a balanced diet which includes a variety of healthy fresh and frozen foods. Thanks to the OTG grant, we can continue to grow our program,” Bilotta said.

To manage the increase in food demand, the FBYR has also added another full-time truck driver to their team to help with the increase in food deliveries over the holidays and into early 2021.

For more information about the FBYR or ways to donate, visit www.fbyr.ca.