Myths and Realities About Food Banks
Nobody wants to see their neighbours go hungry, and yet there are some persistent misconceptions about how the Kawartha Lakes Food Source and its partner food banks and programs actually work. Let’s take a look at some of them.
MYTH: People are getting free food who don’t really deserve it.
Virtually every food bank uses some kind of intake control. A Food Source committee is working on a standardized form, but all food bank clients must provide some information about their finances and expenditures. No one is turned away, but food bank volunteers do everything in their power to ensure the system is being used fairly. Regardless of how we might feel about someone’s life choices, though, are we really prepared to say they should go hungry as a result?
MYTH: Too many clients are able-bodied adults who should be working to make money.
At least half of the food banks’ recipients have some kind of disability. Nearly 15 per cent are working poor. (And if you think they’re not deserving, just imagine trying to support yourself on $8 an hour, when rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Lindsay is $600 a month.) Forty-one per cent of local food bank clients are children; distressingly, this is our fastest-growing category of user. The Food Source also supports 15 school breakfast programs. Again, are we as a society comfortable denying food to children who’ve been sent to school with empty stomachs?
MYTH: The Food Source gets enough government funding that it doesn’t need local donations.
In fact, the Kawartha Lakes Food Source receives no annual funding from any level of government. In the past, it has received grants from certain government programs, but its budget is never certain from year to year.
MYTH: The Food Source is an unnecessary extra level in the system.
Before the Food Source existed, each individual food bank had to do find its own food. Now they benefit from the major food drives and fundraising efforts organized by the Food Source’s volunteer committees. Donations given directly to a food bank stay with that food bank; items collected at KLFS-run or provincially organized food drives are redistributed fairly to food banks around the city. The Food Source pays for a truck to make a trip to Toronto about every two weeks, collecting food from grocery stores and other sources, something the small food banks simply couldn’t do on their own. The result is that 85 per cent of the items given out by the food banks come through the Food Source, and likely wouldn’t have been available to them before the Food Source came into existence.
MYTH: The Food Source spends too much on administration.
KLFS employs a full-time executive director, two part-time warehouse staff, one Volunteer Co-ordinator and one Major Funding Researcher. But administration is what we do, after all; we’re not a food bank that deals directly with clients, but rather, the organization that collects and distributes food. Our extensive network of volunteers dedicating countless hours of their time to collect and sort food means that every dollar donated to the Food Source results in seven dollars’ worth of food being delivered to those who need it.
MYTH: Donors are so tired of being asked for money that they can’t be expected to give more.
This is a generous, caring community with a history of looking after those in need. Hunger can’t wait until it’s convenient for us to give; it never takes a holiday and it never stops hurting.
This was a press release written by Nancy Payne in July 2007. If you would like to read the other articles Nancy has written, please go to our Food for Thought page.