SUDBURY -- Reseau Access Network, an agency in Sudbury that provides HIV, hepatitis, health and social services, recently joined a national network, Good Food Organizations.

It will help stock their unique foodbank and secure funding to help people who face food insecurity.

The foodbank helps provide proper nutrition to people living with HIV and hepatitis, something that's key to helping them through treatment.

"Often people who are receiving treatment for HIV and Hep C get upset stomachs and so having that additional nutrition is very important for treatment," said Heidi Eisenhauer, manager of programs and services at Reseau Access Network.

Kathy Savage, a client of the food bank, will have to take medication for both HIV and hepatitis for the rest of her life.

"It helps my medication work," Savage said, of the special diet. "And it helps me build proteins in my body that would otherwise be depleted while I am taking the medication."

Reseau Access joined the organization to give it better access to funding, especially needed right now with the pandemic hurting fundraising efforts.

"The Good Food Organization gives us an opportunity to be able to access fundraising resources that we would of never been able to access as a previously as a small organization," said Eisenhauer.

Being part of the network will also help secure more food donations with shared information on available resources.

"Being able to receive excess eggs or chickens or things like that from different organizations around town," said Eisenhauer.

Right now, the food bank serves between 70 and 140 people bi-weekly, depending on treatment numbers. Officials say more than 20 of those clients are critically homeless.