Empty spaces typically filled with staple items on the shelves of the local food bank have prompted the Fort Frances Salvation Army to put a call out to the public for some donations.
“We’re low on most everything now,” Capt. Eric Alcock said this morning. “Pretty well every item we normally have we’re very low on.
“We have no canned fruit, and we’re low on canned vegetables, pastas, sauces, and Kraft Dinner.
“We’re actually low on soups, which we’re very rarely low on,” Capt. Alcock added. “And we’re out of juice and cereal, dry cereal, we’re almost out of that.”^He noted things like coffee, sugar, and the universal peanut butter and jam also are in critically low supply. And that perishable items are always in short supply.
“What happened yesterday is we had a family in and realized we had better get a call out,” Capt.
Alcock said.
The woman and her children came in yesterday in need of food assistance, he explained, describing their situation as having so little food that she couldn’t give her children a proper breakfast.
She also couldn’t put together a lunch for her children to take to school so they didn’t go.
Because of the dwindling supply at the food bank, Capt. Alcock said they weren’t able to give her everything they normally would, including things like puddings, fruit cups, and granola bars that could be put into school lunches.
“People may not realize some families are in that type of situation,” he remarked. “We have a steady flow of people coming to see us. There are a significant number in the area that we have to help out.”^Capt. Alcock added they normally would supplement their shelves with “overflow” supply from larger food banks in Winnipeg and Toronto.
When they have excess, they’ll send some of it here.
The local food bank will get this kind of help a few times a year.
“We’ve been trying to get some back-up help from those larger food banks,” he said. “We haven’t been able to get help from them for a couple of months because they are so short. They haven’t had anything to offer us.”^But the fastest and best solution is getting the local community to pitch in and help.
“We try to be generous here,” Capt. Alcock said. “We’ve had a lot of food donations since Christmas, but at this time of year, we find our shelves low.
“Typically June through August, the food bank gets low,” he noted.
“Maybe because people have other things on their mind like weekend plans or going to the lake.
“I’m sure people will back us up when they hear we’re low,” he concluded.
“I think that if they know we’re low, most people will respond somehow. It’s just to let them know we’re low.”
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
