With nearly a third of Simcoe-Muskoka households experiencing food insecurity, demand for The Sharing Place’s popular school food program has skyrocketed — and the food bank hopes to enlist the public’s help to meet growing local need.
Serving nutritious food to over 4,200 students across 23 local schools each day, Sharing Place officials said demand for the School Fuel program spiked towards the end of the school year last year, and has continued climbing as the new school year begins.
“I would send an email to my team and say, ‘Hey guys, heads up. This is the biggest delivery yet,’” said Nancy Hannah, community programs supervisor at The Sharing Place. “We did that again on our last delivery — biggest delivery yet. The demand is way up for these schools, and it just continues to grow and grow and grow.”
As a result, The Sharing Place has acquired an additional van to help with deliveries, and it’s looking for volunteers to help bring food to local schools on Mondays and to help support deliveries across the food bank’s programs.
“We have a dedicated driver for that program, but as you can imagine, we always like to send our drivers out in teams, just for safety and to share the load,” Hannah said. “We are (also) looking for drivers for a variety of different programs that we run.”
While food insecurity rates previously sat at 17 per cent in Simcoe-Muskoka through 2022, that figure ballooned to 30.7 per cent in 2023, as per Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit data, meaning a wide variety of local families and individuals have begun relying on The Sharing Place for support.
“Food insecurity isn't just for low income and those on social assistance anymore. It's hitting families — dual income families — where both parents are working,” Hannah said.
That rise in food insecurity has directly impacted the School Fuel program, as families and The Sharing Place both contend with higher prices for purchasing food.. That's why officials are encouraging residents who are able to continue supporting the food bank and its programs.
“We have 30.7 per cent of our population now food insecure because things are really expensive,” said Chris Peacock, executive director of the Orillia facility.
“That also means that things are really expensive for The Sharing Place … and that's where we need the community to be able to continue to step up — they definitely have — and we just hope that we can get more individuals in our community that have the capacity and the ability to support this type of program.”
Peacock also encouraged the public to get involved with nutrition programs at local schools, which the School Fuel program directly supports.
As demand grows at local schools, officials said the School Fuel program — which began by serving healthy snacks amid the COVID-19 pandemic — is expanding to provide more options for students who may be food insecure.
While the program initially served around 1,600 students per day, last year it served nearly 50 per cent of local students on a daily basis; those numbers are expected to climb again this school year.
“The communication from the schools is it's expanded beyond that, and we need to start looking for lunch programs as well, because there a lot of schools are supporting students who are coming to school, not only not having breakfast, but also (without) a lunch,” Hannah said. “We're trying to expand into sliced breads and things to make sandwiches.”
Residents interested in donating to The Sharing Place or volunteering with the School Fuel program can find more on the food bank's website.
