UPDATE:  3:30 PM

As I hit the doors canvassing this weekend I will be asking everyone I speak to please make a donation to the Salvation Army Food Bank.  You can go to many grocery outlets and drop off a donation in the red boxes located near the exits or you can go to their HQ on Nippissing Road and donate.

I am also willing to pick up any donations for the Food Bank this weekend and it will be dropped off at their location with the names of those who donate.  If you can, please spend a few more dollars this week and help out some local families in need.

Email me mike@mikecluett.ca or call (647) 888-9032 if you’d like me to come by and pick it up for you.

Thanks everyone!

Here is an article in yesterdays Champion regarding the drastic shortage of food at the Salvation Army Food Bank.  They are running very low on food supply to help local families in need.  Summers are usually very slow months for donations and they are looking to the community to help out.

On the Hawthorne Village Forum, local resident Kim (freemantrailfamily) has issued a challenge to area residents to go to their local grocery store and buy some food and make a donation.  I would hope that everyone in Milton can do something to help out.

This coming weekend is Father’s day and lets show Milton’s generosity once again and help out the Salvation Army and the local food bank.  All it takes is a little to help a lot.

Local food bank in desperate situation

With just three packages of rice left on shelves — and some other essential groceries nowhere to be found — the Salvation Army’s food bank is heading into the summer months in rough shape.

Combine those bare shelves with the fact summertime is when the fewest donations come in, and the situation is looking desperate, said Angela Hunt, administrative assistant with Milton’s Salvation Army Food Bank, which is looking to the public for help.

“I’m nervous we won’t have enough of some absolute staples to get us through to the next major drive at Thanksgiving,” Hunt said.

The difficult financial times and Milton’s ever-increasing population are adding up to place a big strain on the food bank, she said.

In the first five months of this year compared with the first five months of last year, there has been an almost 25 per cent increase in the usage of the food bank, with 541 residents using it this year (January to May) and 435 last year.

Of those 106 additional users, 57 are kids.

Over the past three weeks, the amount of food given out has been reduced, and further reductions seem likely, Hunt said.

She’s hoping residents will take the matter to heart, pick up an item or two each week when they go shopping and leave them at the pantry drop-off boxes located inside most grocery stores in town. Food can also be dropped off at the Salvation Army’s office, 100 Nipissing Rd., unit 3.

“People seem to think they have to do big things — but one can once a week would make a difference,” Hunt said.

If just a quarter of Milton’s population picked up one item each, that would mean more than 20,000 food items, which would go a long way toward filling shelves and meeting the needs of those who’ve fallen on hard times, she said.

Items particularly needed include peanut butter, tuna, rice, cereal, juice and kids’ snacks (juice boxes, granola-type bars and pudding). One item not needed is soup.

Donations tend to die down in the summer months, Hunt said, because schools — which often do fundraisers — are closed, churches go into summer mode and people who regularly contribute leave for vacation.

Although we hear in the news the economy is recovering from the recession, the people who use the food bank — ranging from single-parent families to two-parent families to singles — are still struggling, Hunt said. For more information on the food bank, call (905) 875-1022.