There has been a marked increase in items being donated to the HIV Food Bank this month.
Manager of the Food Bank, Stacia Whittaker, stated this is welcomed as 2020 has been a challenging year for the agency.
“If Christmas was every day, we would have no problem. As usual, we have seen a marked increase in donation since December started. December 1st was World AIDS Day, so we had persons at least inquiring about contributing leading up to December 1st and that has also continued so far throughout the month of December and we expect that it would probably continue into early January.”
She continued, “December is always a much easier month for us because we have the supplies coming, we have our donors and surprisingly, despite it was a hard year, we are seeing our donors and even new people reaching out wanting to donate this December, so that has been really great.”
Reflecting on the past months, the Community Nutrition Officer stated this year, particularly during the period of the national shutdown which was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an increase in clients requesting food assistance from the Food Bank. Similarly, there was a drop in donations being received from individuals and groups.
“Many people were laid off obviously during that time and during that time too we saw an increase in clients asking for food assistance. So we had the challenge in that we were trying to meet the need of that demand. It also saw a drop in contributors at the time too, so we were kind of working with less but more clients, so that for us was challenging. Also, because the children were home, heads of households who would normally access our Food Bank were asking for additional food supplies.”