United Way feeding a need for aid across the region

Everyone is adapting to new roles and a new dayto-day, and that includes United Way Niagara.

“Delivering food is not something we normally do,” said executive director Frances Hallworth. “This is a whole new world for us.”

United Way Niagara delivered almost $50,000 worth of food to area food banks including The Hope Centre and Open Arms Mission in Welland, the Salvation Army in Fort Erie, Project Share in Niagara Falls, Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold, Community Care West Niagara in Grimsby and Port Cares in Port Colborne.

Another delivery will be made Monday to the food banks.

“We are excited about what we have collected in the Emergency Response Fund, but we will have spent it all by Monday,” said Hallworth. “We just wanted people to know that we are still collecting emergency response funds.”

To donate, people can go to unitedway.org and select “additional gift information” then click Emergency Response Fund, or call 905-688-5050.

The challenge doesn’t stop at collecting money and delivering the food. Finding food in quantities needed is proving to be a challenge on its own.

“The supply chains are a little short now because everyone is buying, so it took us a week and half to track down someone who could sell us quantities of food like that,” said Hallworth.

The United Way eventually found Gordon Food Service, which could deliver close to what it was looking for.

As well, Post Foods in Niagara Falls donated 700 boxes of cereal for the organization to hand out.

For Project Share, the delivery was a blessing.

“We were getting low, we are going through a lot of food these days,” said executive director Carolyn Bones-Poley. “We are seeing new people.

“We are not requiring people to give us proof of income or ID or anything that we normally require to get Project Share services because we don’t want physical contact. People can still register at our front doors and they can provide us with that information at some point in the future when things normalize again. In the meantime, we don’t want anybody to go hungry.”

Hallworth said with 14 per cent of Niagara’s population living below the poverty line before the pandemic started, the need for aid will not go away any time soon.

In addition to dropping off supplies at food banks, United Way Niagara put together grocery bags of food and Easter activities for kids enrolled in its After School Matters program. There were four sites and six programs running before everything was shut down.