'We had nothing to give': Sarnia food banks struggle to meet demands as food banks across province face increased pressures

Outside of Sarnia’s Inn of the Good Shepherd, client Wyatt Mitchell said he’s come to depend on the in-house food bank.

“I come here monthly. Sometimes I have to come here four or five times a week for lunch because they offer a meal a day,” said Mitchell.

But the food bank itself is struggling.

Right now, it serves about 2,200 people per month. And according to Executive Director Myles Vanni, it’s experienced a 20 per cent increase in usage, while at the same time a 20 per cent decrease in food donations.

On top of that, Vanni said cash donations aren’t keeping pace with food costs.

“Prior to COVID we would spend roughly maybe $5,000 a month on purchasing food. Now we’re finding months it’s maybe as high as $25,000 just to make sure we’ve got enough on stock. And even with that, there are mornings when we have to close the food bank early just because the number of people lined up to come in exceeds the food that we’ve got on the shelves,” explained Vanni.

The Inn of the Good Shepherd is certainly not alone. According to a new report by Feed Ontario, Ontario’s largest collective of hunger relief organizations, food banks across the province are cutting services as demand outpaces resources.

The report says more than one million people accessed a food bank between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024, an increase of 25 per cent over last year and 86 per cent since 2019-2020.

In addition, Ontario food banks were visited more than 7.6 million times throughout the year, an increase of 31 per cent over last year. And further, two in five visitors had never accessed a food bank before, representing an increase of 43 per cent.

The smaller of Sarnia’s two food banks is also facing increased pressure.

River City Vinyard community shelter in Sarnia on Dec. 2, 2024. (Bryan Bicknell/CTV News London)River City Vinyard serves between 300 and 450 people per month, according to manager Audrey Kelway. But last month came a situation she said they had never experienced before.

“So, we did have to close it a few times in November because we had nothing to give,” said Kelway.

She said she hesitated to reach out to the community for donations, knowing there are many others struggling, themselves.

In the meantime, both Sarnia food banks say they’re counting on the holidays to bring out the spirit of giving.

“Now people have started. Usually at Christmas people get pretty generous, so we will start to get some more things,” said Kelway.