$50,000 grant helps St. Thomas, Ont. Food Bank buy 9 new freezers

Sue Gillick and Sarah Coleman with the St. Thomas-Elgin Food Bank show off one of its new commercial grade freezers on Feb. 28, 2022. (Brent Lale/CTV London)

The delivery truck pulled up to the back of the St. Thomas-Elgin Food Bank, and the new three-glass door commercial-grade freezers were unloaded one by one Monday.

A $50,000 grant from Feed Ontario helped purchase eight of the units, while the community chipped into fund the other one.

“It’s very exciting,” says Sarah Coleman, assistant general manager of the Food Bank.

“When we moved into the building a year ago, we brought our old fridges and freezers but we ran out of room very quickly .The community need has increased through COVID job loss, product supply and demand with people not working.”

Coleman says they had to turn down some food in the past, but that won’t be a concern now.

She calls the community programming in the city “wonderful.”

“Walmart allows us to pick up anywhere between 500 to 1500 lbs. of food per week,” says Coleman.

“That includes frozen dairy, frozen meat products, bread, and bakery items. We’re going to be able to fully stock every unit and the more room we have, the more we can bring in. The more we have the more we give.”

The freezers need to sit for 24 hours after being delivered, but they will be plugged in and stocked Tuesday.