Shelves of food are depleting at the Williams Lake Salvation Army food bank.
Already in 2025, the number of people accessing services is up by 10 per cent, on top of the reality it went up 20 per cent last year.
“It’s very concerning,” said community ministries director Tamara Robinson. “All the food we received at Christmas has been distributed.”
Generally Christmas donations last until the end of April or early May so that is why Robinson is worried and recently placed a $5,000 food order to put food on the shelves.
Items they need are Kraft Dinner, diced tomatoes, peanut butter, stove-top stuffing, hamburger helper, canned beans in sauce, canned pasta and cereal.
They don’t need things like flour and sugar.
Statistics Robinson keeps show that females make up 55 per cent of the clients and 45 per cent are male.
“We’ve distributed 685 hampers since January, 61,000 pounds of food and $220,000 worth of food so far,” she said. “Our numbers are rising and I am anticipating a 30 per cent increase this fiscal year.”
