Food charity struggles to keep pace
CityReach `maxed out' by soaring demand, rising costs and reduced funding
A tenfold rise in demand has left a Metro Vancouver food bank program struggling to keep going.
CityReach Care Society has been operating its Food for Families program since 2009.
Before the pandemic hit, the non-profit was providing 100 families a week with fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, meat and dairy. Today, it serves 1,000 families a week and has had to turn people away.
“We're feeling the pinch,” said executive director Simon Gau. “Every week we have to turn away families who show up, but we are at the point if we give food to a new family, we won't have food for families already pre-registered.”
The program uses rescued foods — products near their best-before dates that would typically end up in a landfill — donated by grocery stores and farms, and distributes them to low-income families in five sites in Vancouver, Surrey and the Tri-Cities.
It had to shut down its registry last year because it cannot add any more families.
“We are maxed out. We simply cannot go beyond ... based on the fridge space and infrastructure we have.”
The surge in demand was initially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Demand started going up by about 50 families a week. But at the time, there was also a flood of donations and pandemic grants, which helped them meet demand.
Now funding has dried up, but the need has only grown, bolstered by rising costs and inflation.
In 2019, CityReach was distributing about $150,000 worth of food a year, said Guo. Last year, they distributed $3.2 million worth.
“We went from having to navigate boxes of food to navigating pallets of food.”
To keep up with demand, the charity purchased a second refrigerated truck that can pick up donations from stores and farms. It boosted staff and signed up a small army of volunteers to sort, pack and distribute the food.
But two years in, volunteers are getting burnt out, and the organization is nearing its breaking point.
“We are in danger of shutting down completely if we don't continue to see donations come in and volunteers sign up,” Gau said. “We talk weekly about `can we keep this up? Do we change how the program works? Do we cut one of the days?'”
But those options are difficult to consider, he said.
“It's heartbreaking when you have to think about choosing between kids and families in need or at-risk seniors.”
CityReach is desperately in need of money to bolster its infrastructure, volunteers and partnerships with farms and grocery stores.
To make matters worse, last week both their refrigerated trucks were vandalized, tubes near gas lines cut and parts removed. The trucks had to be pulled off the road for two days, which meant they weren't able to provide 200 families with food. “It highlights how every bit of infrastructure is so valuable to our organization,” said Gau. “We don't have backup trucks on standby. We try to do the best we could with what we have.”