Food Bank use up in Nanaimo, across Canada: report
NANAIMO – A new report from Food Banks Canada shows more and more Canadians are struggling to put food on the table.
The report says as of this past March, food bank usage is up 1.3 per cent across Canada compared to March 2015. Peter Sinclair, executive director of the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank in Nanaimo, says it’s a trend they’ve noticed locally.
“Year to date we’re up about five per cent,” said Sinclair. “But there was a significant jump that we saw in the early summer beginning in June and right through July and August and it’s continued onto now. We are definitely seeing an increase in the number of people accessing the food bank.”
Alarmingly, one third of the food bank clients are children. Sinclair says he can’t pinpoint one cause of the increase in the number of clients. He says there are likely a number of reasons why.