Due to COVID-19, the Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre was unable to proceed with our annual City Wide Food Drive earlier this month. In its place, we hosted our first virtual food drive, COMMUNITY CLICK & PICK-NIC!

Normally hosted on the first Saturday in May, the City Wide Food Drive would raise approximately 70,000 lbs of food a year and allowed the SFBLC to prepare for the increased demand during summer. The summer months are often difficult, with students out of school and unable to access student meal programs, many families are forced to turn to the food bank to ensure their family is fed.

This is particularly true at the moment. With many people laid off, working reduced hours, not able to work due to weakened immune systems or lack of childcare, this has been very difficult on everyone. Many community members accessing emergency food baskets are families with school-age children.

Good nutrition is essential for a child’s
learning and healthy development.

Not only has it has been difficult on families already using our emergency food basket program, it has also been difficult for individuals who turned to the food back during the pandemic for the very first time. We often hear that people don’t think they will ever need the food bank, until they do. No one can predict the circumstances they will find themselves in and how life can change in the blink of an eye.

The funds raised during the month of May with our COMMUNITY CLICK & PICK-NIC has helped purchase nutritious food during for emergency food hampers during this difficult time. We have been fortunate to leverage our purchasing power and buy in bulk so we could prepare pre-packages emergency food baskets. With the need for physical distancing, we have been operating with reduced resources. Understandably, we have seen a significant decrease in food drives recently, and we have not been able to welcome many volunteers to the warehouse to help.

Pre-packaged food hampers have allowed our staff to quickly respond to the urgent and ongoing demand for emergency nutrition during this pandemic.

As we wrap up our COMMUNITY CLICK & PICK-NIC, we like to thank everyone who this supported this food drive and helped make a difference in our community.