Record number of families helped at the Salvation Army
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By LeRae Haynes
In March every year Hunger Count, an organization that assesses the current food shortages that families are experiencing, asks all the food banks in Canada to register their numbers for that particular month. Based on those numbers, they get a national scope of what’s happening.
“We submitted our numbers like everybody else,” said Shandi Warkentin from the Salvation Army Food Bank. “We were one of the few food banks contacted after the assessment, because our increase was greater than 25%. In March we were running between a 300 and 500% increase in numbers from last year.”
When Hunger Count asked for reasons for the huge increase, Shandi said that she explained to them that, for the first time, all three major sectors had been hit very hard: forestry, mining and agriculture.
Last year by July 31 there were 468 members assisted, and this year that number is 1,276. “It used to be singles and couples and now we are primarily helping families,” she continued. “Last year in July we helped 18 kids, and this July we helped 215. The total number of new families so far this is 228, around the same number of total households assisted in 2008.”
She said that it’s the number of children that constitutes the biggest increase. “Men and women have gone up a couple hundred percent each, but the number of children has gone up 500%,” she explained.
There are many food bank clients who have never accessed a food bank before who are coming from one of the three major sectors: forestry, mining and ranching. “Families, for the first time, are discovering that they can’t get jobs in one of their fall-back sectors,” she said.
“These are people who genuinely want jobs: they want to work. The clients we’re seeing right now are people who aren’t used to being on the system. They don’t want to be here and they feel bad about it. Their intent is to get off the system the moment it’s plausible.
“We always assure them that we’re here to help and encourage them to stay as long as they need to: we don’t want them to experience undue hardship when there’s something we can do to help,” she continued.
“We are getting clients coming from 100 Mile House temporarily, because their food bank is closed over the summer. It’s quite a trip for them to get up here, and if they work an appointment here around a doctor’s appointment, for example, we always try to accommodate them,” she explained. “We do the same with our clients who come from out west.”
She said that while the volume of people needing help has increased, the volunteer base has remained the same. “Our volunteers, who go through an application process and a criminal record check, are so deeply appreciated,” she explained.
“We could really use somebody to come in once a week and clean the kitchen stoves and refrigerators. You can also build food hampers, serve breakfast or lunch and man the coffee counter in the afternoon,” she 
continued.
Upcoming programs at the Salvation Army will include a one-day budgeting program and a cooking class. “We currently have a guitar class where people can learn basic chords and sing songs,” she said. “It’s a great way to socialize and improve musical skills.”
Food items that are in extreme shortage in the Food Bank are dry pasta, white sugar, white flour and canned soup.
For more information about the Salvation Army Food Bank and how you can help, phone 250-392-2429.
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