By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
This week, the City of Burlington raised the flag of local food distribution hub Feed Halton, to signify the beginning of Hunger Action Month across Canada.
Robin Bailey, executive director of Feed Halton (and of the Burlington Food Bank) was in attendance, along with Krista Kay, director of marketing and community fundraising, and Angelo Bentivegna, city councillor for Ward 6.
After Bentivegna’s opening remarks, Bailey spoke at the podium about the history of Feed Halton and the Burlington Food Bank.
Bailey said that the Burlington Food Bank started 33 years ago as a temporary emergency relief and compared food banks to the fire department.
“You want us there for emergency, but you really don’t want us to be busy,” Bailey said. “But sadly, we’re very busy.”
Bailey said that statistics about food insecurity in Burlington vary, but that Feed Halton estimates around 14% of the population is experiencing the issue.
Bailey then thanked all the levels of government for their cooperation and support for Feed Halton. He mentioned that the Halton regional government has provided a walk-in freezer, refrigerated trucks, and a grant for $500,000 to the hub.
Bailey spoke about the relationship between the Burlington Food Bank and Feed Halton.
“This idea of a centralized hub, it’s been talked about within our region for well over 15 years, but no organization has ever stepped up,” Bailey said. “We [food banks] all said this is the best way to serve. This is the best thing that could ever happen for our region.”
“To the Burlington Food Bank, congratulations to the board for really seeing the vision and why we should do it and invest it into Feed Halton,” Bailey continued. “Looking beyond just the local food bank but instead trying to tackle the idea of food security, hunger, and that part of poverty.”
Bailey explained what it meant for the city to recognize the organization in such a public way.
“It’s a huge thing,” Bailey said. “The community has always been super supportive. One of the things that I’m most proud about with Burlington is [that] regularly when we talk about communities and we hear about the struggles that they’re having with their food banks, whenever we’ve reached out to the community, they’ve always been super supportive as well as the mayor and her office, and all of the councillors, they’ve always been there for us.”
Bailey also explained what Hunger Action Month is all about.
“It’s a national program,” Bailey said. “It’s Food Banks Canada, Feed Ontario, which is our provincial association, and then we take it to the local level. It’s all about educating and advocating. As well as really helping people understand the need and understand what hunger is, that it’s actually just one of the symptoms of poverty, and understanding that the real battle is against poverty. And, it’s really important for us to always remember that we’re not in it alone. We’re doing it together as a community.”
He also spoke about the huge growth in people going to food banks over the last few years.
“The increase has been going on for quite a while,” Bailey said. “When I first started at the food bank several years ago, we were seeing approximately 12 families a day, and now we see an excess of 50 on a regular basis.”
Bailey also spoke about the increase in working people visiting their food banks.
“In the last two years, we’ve seen a pretty significant increase,” Bailey said. “And that increase has been more amongst people who are working. And that’s when you start getting a little bit more wary, a little bit more worried, because these are people who are working full-time jobs or a couple of part-time jobs to try to make it work, and they just can’t.”
“The cost of living continues to rise, rents continue to increase, even people with mortgages, because of the variable interest rates, they start to decline,” he continued. “And so lots of families found themselves in precarious positions. But thankfully, the food bank’s been there. We’re open on Thursday evenings, and that’s one of the nights that we saw a huge increase. That evening is mostly people who are working so that’s really where we’re seeing the most growth.”
Bentivegna recalled the origins of Feed Halton, talking about a meeting at a church across from the Food for Life headquarters.
He said that all three levels of government were there, along with himself, as part of the Gift of Giving Back.
“We talked about how we could consolidate all these great organizations out there who are doing, for all intents and purposes, the same thing,” Bentivegna said. “So this is something that everyone’s been looking to get done for many, many years.”
