There are many empty boxes at the Sudbury Food Bank warehouse. Officials confirm the need is up at the same time donations are down.
"Well you can see by looking behind me there is very little food in the warehouse right now," said Dan Xilon, executive director of the Sudbury Food Bank.
“We are really quite down on food right at the moment. We are still basically meeting the need more or less but haven't had to reduce services yet but we are down in food.”
KhalsaAid, a registered charity and Sikh organization with a chapter in Sudbury, made a donation to the food bank Monday. Officials said it operates on the principle of ‘recognize the whole human race as one.’
"As we all know after COVID there is a whole lot of new demand for the food," said the regional director of KhalsaAid Canada, Karan Badhesha.
“And as I know Dan and met him and when I met him he initially told me the shelves are empty and there is a huge demand for the food.”
Food bank officials said the number of people needing help continues to increase across all demographics. Right now it's helping 17,000 people a month.
"Sounds like a broken record but the need always goes up,” Xilon said.
“The extraordinary need of people needing food banks are coming mainly from individuals who are working ... And seniors seem to be the two biggest growing groups.”
Officials with KhalsaAid said they collected food for every age group during its food drive.
"For the infants like the baby food we make sure that it is there because we want to make sure that everybody has food on their table from kids to adults and to the older people," said Badhesha.
Officials at the food bank said they hope others will donate what they can or organize food drives to help at a time before the need can't be met.
