London Food Bank Co-Executive Directors Jane Roy and Glen Pearson. (File photo by Miranda Chant, Blackburn Media)London Food Bank Co-Executive Directors Jane Roy and Glen Pearson. (File photo by Miranda Chant, Blackburn Media)
London

Spring food drive goes virtual

The London Food Bank has launched it's annual Spring Food Drive at a time when demand for its services is spiking.

The food bank's 33rd Spring Food Drive launched on Friday with a coronavirus-related twist. This year, it is a virtual food drive in which people are being asked to make online donations of money, rather than donations of non-perishable food items.

"This is the first time the main focus is actually going to be money," said Food Bank Co-Director Jane Roy. "There's not going to be a bag in the paper, there's not going to be volunteers collecting food. So, what we're asking people to do is donate money online and we'll take the money and turn it into groceries."

While the focus of the drive is financial donations, the food bank is still accepting donations of non-perishable food items like peanut butter, rice, baby food and formula, soup, vegetables, beans juice, tinned meat and fish, pasta and pasta sauce, boxed dinners and other dry goods such as powdered milk, cereal, and crackers. Roy says the Food Bank is following the advice of health officials and, in effect, quarantining the donations for 14 days before releasing them to those who need them.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting slowdown of the economy led to a sharp increase in demand for the food bank's services, according to Roy. She said they saw a considerable spike last month.

"You can't quarantine hunger. There are a fair number of folks in our community who need help and are struggling. What we've really seen is the number of new clients, the number of people who've never been here before. In the last two weeks of March, that went up 80 per cent," she said.

Financial donations to the Spring Food Drive can be made online at www.londonfoodbank.ca. Those that want to have a monetary or food donations picked up can call 519-659-4045.

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