A food bank in Oshawa, has been asking its customers to help out monetarily to continue the service. According to a Durhamregion.com report, the food bank has started requesting clients for a donation; $20 for families and $15 for individuals.
"The Eating Well Ministries", a non emergency food bank, provides clients with food and personal hygiene items and can be visited once in 40 days. Ed Simpson, Director of the Food bank told durhamregion.com that collecting food donations is not a problem but he finds it hard to pay the bills which include high rent, utilities and insurance. "We recently had to pay $1200 repair bill which was a bit tough," Simpson said.
The Eating Well Ministries has all grocery items including canned and dried foods and also perishables like meat and dairy products. The food bank is managed exclusively by volunteers. The donation part has not gone sown that well with Oshawa residents. Said Kimberly Bradley, "I'm sharing this story because there are several people who need to access these facilities that don't have this kind of money." She felt it was not fair game as most of them could not afford donations. "Eating Well should find other ways to cover its bills, such as fundraising, instead of asking clients for a donation," she asserted.
On the other hand, Simpson said that it was hard for the organization, which does not receive any government aid, to go on without donations from its clients. He pointed out that he would do away or reduce the donation request if corporate donors came forward. "If I could get 10 corporate sponsors at about $4,000 a year from each of them, that would take the pressure off," Durhamregion.com quoted him as saying.
As the food bank is not an emergency food provider, clients wait for several weeks for an appointment. It provides food not only to low income groups but also caters to people with larger income. "We do not turn people away without food and we ask for help. We had to get help from the people because we weren't able to get it from anyone else," Simpson explained.
Oshawa is a city in Ontario, Canada, and is known as the 'automotive capital of Canada.'
