’Tis the season to help the hungry

It’s very cold outside, and Christmas is less than six weeks away. This is a good time of year to help out your neighbours in the community who don’t have as much.

At agencies all across Niagara, from Port Colborne and Fort Erie through the larger centres like Niagara Falls, Welland and St. Catharines, holiday campaigns are starting to collect food, clothing and supplies for people in need. And as we seem to say every year, the need this year is greater than ever before.

Sometimes, the numbers tell the story best. Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold, for example, last year helped 1,850 families have access to food security each month.

Volunteers and staff handed out two tons of food daily, five days a week. Four-thousand pounds per day! As well, Community Care and other social agencies around the region work with Niagara Nutrition Partners to feed 17,000 schoolchildren around Niagara each day.

At Project Share in Niagara Falls, they need to collect more than 800,000 pounds of food each year for distribution. And every day, about 100 families turn to that agency for emergency assistance, which could include food but might also be housing or emergency accommodation, or a need for clothing.

The Hope Centre in Welland provides food for the needy, but also offers transitional housing, assistance meeting utility payments, help with income tax and counselling. Welland and Port Colborne just held their annual city-wide food drives.

The roots of poverty run deeper than many people can imagine. People who need help don’t always look like people who need help.

It may well be the person who lives next door. They have a roof over their heads, but not enough money to go around to provide good meals for their children. Possibly the person you work with has just gone through a breakup and needs somewhere to live.

And the importance of good nutrition for children cannot be overstated. Numerous studies prove that a child who starts the school day with a proper breakfast is more alert throughout the day, does better socially among other students and is better able to absorb what is taught.

Many of us live close to the edge financially and are vulnerable to needing assistance if one or two things go wrong.

Over the coming weeks you will hear about more Christmas campaigns starting, drives to collect gloves and mittens, gifts for children from needy families, cash to buy Christmas meals for families that can’t otherwise afford it.

Everyone should try to give what they can. It doesn’t have to be much; give within your means. The donations all add up.

In its most recent statistics, from 2017, Statistics Canada reports nearly one in 10 Canadians lives below the poverty line, which means a family does not have enough income to purchase a specific basket of goods and services in its community.

Of course, it’s not only people living in poverty who require help from the community. It’s the family where a job is suddenly lost or work hours are cut back. Or one is suddenly evicted. For many people, even an unexpected, expensive car repair can be the difference between providing for themselves or asking for help.

“I don’t want to be always saying, ‘it’s getting worse,’ but I think things have reached a point where it’s really visible. Everyone sees what is going on,” said Community Care chief executive officer Betty Lou Souter recently.

Unfortunately, she’s right.