Sault foodbank brings back school lunch program

With a new school year fast approaching, St. Vincent Place in Sault Ste. Marie is accepting applications for its school lunch program.

This year’s program launch comes at a time when food banks are struggling to keep up with demand as food costs continue to increase due to inflation.

"We could really use donations in support of the Lunches for Learning program right now," said Sarah McCleary, the coordinator of the program.

"The non-perishables, definitely, folks could donate. Or they can make a monetary donation and just indicate that they want it go towards the program."

Meantime, Harvest Algoma’s 'Every Breakfast Counts' program is wrapping up for the summer. Officials there said it’s been busy.

"What we’re doing is great, but the fact that we need to feed a thousand kids a week is not so great," said Deron Barlow. "And we’d probably do more, but we have a budget and a limit on what we can actually service."

Officials at St. Vincent Place and Harvest Algoma said food bank usage has been steadily increasing as rising food costs are putting a squeeze on donations.

"The food bank usage has definitely gone up over the last several months over the previous five year average, it’s really not stopping," said McCleary.

"Donations have been slowing down, unfortunately, so they’re not really keeping up, but the client usage is going up."

Barlow said year-to-date totals at Harvest Algoma have already surpassed last year’s numbers.

"Last year, we had about 14,253 adults that were fed through us, and that was for the full year," he said.

"This year, it’s now Aug. 16 and we’re at 14,753. So our numbers have already gone up, and we’ve got another four months to go."

St. Vincent Place has capped participation in its Lunches for Learning program at 200 kids and spots are filling up fast. Those not part of the initial 200 will be put on a waiting list.