What does hunger look like? The truth is hunger is not always easy to see. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real or doesn’t exist.
Currently, 1 in 26 people will need help with hunger in Ontario, forced to turn to food banks to feed themselves and their families.
Right here in our own backyard, that number is 1 in 32, an astounding figure for a food bank service area with a population 7,150 (statistics from the Madawaska Valley (MV) Food Bank), serving Madawaska Valley, Brudenell, Lyndoch and Raglan, and South Algonquin townships.
A new report from Food Banks Canada, found that, this year, food bank usage rose to its highest level since the collection of results started in 1989.
The HungerCount report is based on surveys sent to food insecurity organizations tracking their usage each year in the month of March. The 2023 report found that food bank use is at a “crisis level”, with nearly two million people, including more employed people then ever, using the service in March of 2023 alone, a 32 per cent increase from the same month last year and more then 78 per cent higher than March 2019.
In the Greater Toronto Area, food banks like the Daily Bread are worried they won’t be able to keep up with the demand, reporting that food bank usage has “skyrocketed, up 51 per cent from last year.”
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