Food bank making sure people fed amid COVID-19 pandemic

Food bank still able to help amid pandemic From CTV Kitchener’s Leighanne Evans: The food bank has still been able to support vulnerable populations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

KITCHENER — The Food Bank of Waterloo Region has faced many challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but it's never stopped providing assistance to people in need.

"Our team here shifted gears dramatically," said food bank CEO Wendi Campbell. "Within the first few weeks, we were distributing 40 per cent more food than we had in the previous year."

The food bank has released a COVID-19 impact report detailing how the organization adapted this year.

"We wanted to be able to report back to our donors and back to the community the importance of their support as we navigated through this crisis," Campbell said.

From mid-March to the end of August, the food bank reported a 30 per cent increase in emergency food assistance. It served more than 330,000 meals at shelters and outreach programs, and 1,300 new households have accessed the services.

"Being able to provide a range of services and referrals to a range of services is really important to help people who are accessing the service for the very first time navigate a system that they might not be familiar with," Campbell said.

During that same time frame, the food bank said it increased deliveries by 159 per cent. It was able to acquire and deliver more than 2 million pounds of food and more than 21,000 people received food and hunger relief support.

The food bank has also created nearly 40,000 food hampers for various programs and services in Waterloo Region.

"To support those programs who might not have the space capacity or the resources to get those hampers together, we're doing some of that leg work for them," Campbell said.

She said the food bank will continue to evolve as the situation does.

"To make sure that we have all the resources that we need so that we can continue to change, adapt and pivot," Campbell said.