By Pepper Parr
December 20th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
The rate at which the Omnicron variant of the Covid19 virus is tearing through the province (3784 new infections yesterday) has put pressure on everything and everyone.
Food donations arrive daily but the demand is bigger than the supply. Cash on hand makes it possible to purchase needed food items.
The Burlington Food Bank soldiers on with their service that provides fresh food to families that need help on the three week rotation they use.
With the holidays upon us the Food Bank has had to do what can only be called an extreme pivot.
Robin Bailey, Executive Director of the Food Bank said earlier today that they are able to meet the growing demand with enough in the way of food donations coming in and enough money in the bank to be able to purchase what isn’t donated.
“We have found that we need to purchase more these days and inflated prices aren’t helping. We are fortunate in that we have a number of corporate supporters that work with us on an almost daily basis.”
Robin Bailey, Executive Director of the Burlington Food Bank is before the cameras almost daily – thanking people for the food and cash donations
Longer term, adds Bailey “it is difficult to project where we will be this time next year. We thought we were on our way out of the pandemic and edging towards a more normal environment.
The numbers on the need side are getting a little worse but the support from the community is holding up and the really wonderful part of all this is that the volunteer staff are continuing to show up every day.
“We are going to be closed for the week between the holidays (December 27th to December 31st) but we will be open the afternoon of Christmas Eve to ensure that everyone who needs food is taken care of.
When we decided that we had to be open I hoped that some of the staff would be able to stay the extra few hours” said Bailey who added that the “volunteers were asking me this morning if the Christmas Eve hours were still on.”
Indeed it is still on. The Burlington Food Bank will be open until 2:00 pm the afternoon of Christmas Eve.
