Closed Olive Branch will keep giving with proceeds of sale

The Olive Branch — which recently closed after 25 years of providing free meals — is set to donate $300,000 to organizations in Hamilton that are fulfilling the mission it set out to achieve.

The money comes from the sale of its building at 195 Rebecca St., near Ferguson Avenue North, and the board of directors is deciding which organizations they will be donating to.

“The Olive Branch wasn’t really fulfilling the mission it set out to achieve,” said Sam Loaker, chair of the board. “Consequently, what we all kind of agreed with was that we should sell the building and use the money to bless organizations which were achieving the goals we set out to achieve in 1992.”

That mission was to provide free meals for those in need, which Loaker says they were unable to do effectively as donations were down and volunteers were being forced to work with the bare minimum of resources.

Of the four-person board, three were in favour of closing down the organization’s services on Rebecca Street. Those who utilized The Olive Branch’s free lunch program — which ran three days a week before the organization closed — will be forced to resort to other services in the city.

While the demand for free meals and food banks isn’t going up in Hamilton, the poverty of those who rely on those services is deepening, says Joanne Santucci, executive director of Hamilton Food Share.

The food share supplies 11 food banks across the city. An increased cost of living and stagnant social programs and wages are making life harder for the poor, says Santucci. As a result, those with precarious economic situations have less and less income left over for food and other necessities.

“Everything is increasing except the household income,” said Santucci. “That has a real dramatic impact on the people we’re serving. It’s not just rent. Rent is going up, but so is food, so is heat, so is gas. It’s all going up. What is staying stagnant is our social safety net.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Mark Tennant, manager of Good Shepherd Hamilton, an organization that sees between 110 and 120 families access its food bank per day.

“The cost of living and rent are up,” said Tennant. “Everything is going up, except wages and social assistance. People are struggling and need help. In some cases, people have less than five dollars a day to feed their families.”

At Neighbour to Neighbour, the organization is planning a grand opening for its Hamilton Community Food Centre, which is located at 310 Limeridge Road West, Unit 10.

The agency is partnering with Community Food Centres Canada for the project, which will be the first Community Food Centre in the city and help the organization broaden its programs and services.

The April 21 event is open to the public and runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Nearly 20,000 people access food bank services monthly in Hamilton.

Half of those people spend 50 to 99 per cent of their total income on rent, according to food share statistics.

Poverty levels and food bank usage are higher in Hamilton than the Canadian average.

One in seven people in Canada lives in poverty, while in Hamilton it is one in five, according to a food share report released in 2016.

While food bank usage across the country is up 26 per cent since 2008, in Hamilton it is 28 per cent.

Everything is going up, except wages and social assistance. MARK TENNANT GOOD SHEPHERD