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Food Bank president amazed by student and community support

The president of our local foodbank says he was flabbergasted at the community support earlier this week for Franco-Cité’s “Une Canne ça dépanne!”.

Don Clendenning says West Nipissing residents donated over 20,000 lbs of food, and over $ 1700 during the event.

For over two decades, Franco-Cité students, teachers, and parents come together for a community food drive as a Thanksgiving tradition.

“It’s amazing. And the enthusiasm of the kids doing the pickup, it’s all terrific,” says Clendenning. “Talk about stepping up at all levels, [from the people who open their doors to the students]. It’s good to see high-school kids getting involved with something that helps the community, this kind of service like a food bank. It plants the seed for further participation.”

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Clendenning says for him, and for many of the food bank’s clients, it was one big bail-out.

“We were getting pretty low. I think we were down to about 30 or 40 boxes of cereal as of Wednesday morning. Some of the other stuff we just ran out. Nothing left to give. This is going to put us back on our feet for several months at least,” he says.

Clendenning says over the last year the clientele at the foodbank has roughly doubled.

“We used to do about 60-75 people, somewhere in that area on the first and third Wednesday of the month. Now that’s just people through the door. If they have kids at home, that’s probably five to 600 people overall. Lately, we get about 130 people [on pick-up days]. So that’s representing a whole lot more people. Many of our clients have kids at home and a partner,” says Clendenning.

He attributes a jump in clients to inflation, among other factors.

“Inflation really gave us a kick. Whenever anybody goes to the store, they’re shopping for themselves or their family. In our case, we go out every first and third Tuesday of the month to buy food, and we’re buying for what we figure is about 140 people coming in. […] We’ve been surviving because we had a fairly healthy bank account. But with the prices going up, and the clients increasing, it’s just been depleted.”

Clendenning says they’re working with other organizations on possibly hosting other food drives to help feed the community.

“We’re in a tight spot, but I wouldn’t say we’re dire straits,” he says. “We’re looking at various ideas for fundraisers, and other organizations have also helped us before and may again.”

If your home was missed during this week’s pick-up, officials say you can drop them off at the food bank as volunteers will be there on Friday and parts of next week to help put all of the goods away.

 

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