Food banks feed growing numbers of hungry
142,000 MONTREALERS a day use some form of emergency food aid. By far, children under 18 comprise the largest group
Fred Griffith left his home in New Bordeaux just after 6 a.m. Tuesday and drove across town to Buffet La Stanza, a restaurant in St-Léonard where staff were putting the finishing touches on hot lunches that are delivered each day to hungry Montreal schoolchildren.
After loading the trays of chicken, mashed potatoes, salad and Jell-O into his van, Griffith, 78, and a co-worker drove to École Marc Favreau in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, where he dropped off between 35 and 50 meals.
After a short stop at another N.D.G. school, the retired plumber headed to Point-StCharles, where he delivered between 110 and 130 lunches to St. Gabriel’s School.
Griffith, who is nicknamed “the food man” by the young students, has been delivering hot meals and dry foods for Generations Foundation since 1999.
During its first year, the non-profit organization helped 175 children in a handful of Montreal schools. This year, it will deliver food, snacks and milk to 6,500 children in 72 schools and 18 educational centres across Montreal Island.
“If the kids are hungry, they can’t concentrate and they can’t learn,” said Adrian Bercovici, who started Generations Foundation after helping homeless men at the Old Brewery Mission for many years.
“We are trying to level the playing field between the kid who is falling asleep at his desk (because of hunger) and the one who is alert,” said Bercovici, who spends about $200,000 buying food each year thanks to contributions from generous Montrealers.
Bercovici said there are too many Montreal families who are struggling to make ends meet because of high rents, fewer jobs and an increase in the cost of some food, such as cheese and juice.
He made his comments on the same day that Moisson Montréal, the city’s largest food bank, released its annual statistics on the number of people who use food banks across the island.
The statistics show that children under 18 represent 40.9 per cent of the total number of users, up from 37.4 per cent in 2011.
More than 385,153 meals and 74,624 snacks were served in March, a 14 per cent increase over the corresponding month last year, according to the survey, which was completed by Moisson Montréal’s 200 partners on the island of Montreal.
“The fact that the proportion of children and families needing support from our partner organizations is still growing confirms, once again, a trend that we have observed since 2008,” said Dany Michaud, executive director of Moisson Montréal.
“More than 140,000 people continue to rely on emergency food aid every month on the island of Montreal.”
Households whose main source of income is social assistance represent 61.5 per cent of the respondents who took advantage of emergency food aid in March, according to data collected as part of the Montreal Island Hunger Count 2012.
About 10 per cent of people who rely on food banks are employed, meaning that they have trouble keeping up with the cost of living, Michaud said.
“The problem of hunger, closely linked to that of low income, is ongoing for too many people and families in Montreal,” he said.
After delivering food to schools for 13 years, Griffith says he never tires of seeing how grateful the children are whenever “the food man” arrives at school.
“We are well received and they are happy to get the food,” Griffith said modestly. “I have always liked kids.”