Six months into 2025 and St. Thomas-Elgin Food Bank is on course to set a record for mouths fed this year.

It’s a record nobody wants to see set.

Unfortunately, though, six months into 2025 and St. Thomas-Elgin Food Bank is on course to set a record for mouths fed this year.

For a third year in a row.

The food bank at the beginning of the year feared having to feed 30,000 mouths, a new all-time high.

And on Wednesday, Karen McDade, the food bank’s manager of public relations and administration, confirmed, “I definitely know it will be close to that.”

The food bank last year fed a record 24,949 mouths – eclipsing a then high of 19,424 set in 2023.

As of Tuesday this week, the agency this year already has supplied groceries to feed 13,281, surpassing a mid-year mark of 11,248 in 2024 and a seemingly paltry 8,800 the year before.

“You can just tell by that figure. And we’ve still got half a year to go.”

The why comes down largely to one reason, Karen says.

“Grocery cost is the largest one.”

The rising cost of food is forcing more families to turn to the food bank for assistance. They can claim a hamper every 21 days and, every week during summer when school is out and children can’t access school-based nutrition programs, the food bank’s Summer Top-Up program of five breakfasts and lunches for each school-age child.

“We have a lot of new people coming in. Constantly, daily ….”

This month, alone, 56 families.

“That’s a lot.”

And that same rising cost of groceries also is showing up on the food bank’s shelves – or, rather, it isn’t. With more families pinching pennies by waiting for sales of soon-dated food, Karen says that means less to be gleaned by the food bank from grocery stores.

“We aren’t getting as many groceries from the grocery stores now because when they mark them down in price, people are buying them more than they would before.

“… Yesterday, I got one tray of frozen meat compared to five a month ago, two months ago.”

But the food bank also is able to buy in bulk, with cooperating grocery stores generously allowing price-matching on as much as a skid of Kraft Dinner.

And while donations of both food and money are down, that’s a usual, summertime thing. Fall always brings a ramp-up of food drives in a supportive community.

This is the third year for the food bank’s Summer Top-Up program, a support built on a Food Banks Canada After the Bell Program supplying summertime snacks, now expanded by the food bank to full meals.

Just half-way into the nine-week program, 850 Top-Ups have been distributed, each containing five breakfasts and five lunches and snacks. A family can claim one Top-Up each week for each child age four to 17 years.

It’s not cheap – net........

© Sarnia Observer