Community donates 50,000 pounds of food to 29th annual Project Porchlight Food Drive

The Huntsville and area community once again stepped up to help those in need this Christmas during the 29th annual Project Porchlight Food Drive on December 6. Donations continued to come in following that night and more than 50,000 pounds of food is now on the shelves at the Salvation Army Food Bank, ready to help local families.

It couldn’t have come at a more needed time.

While there is typically an increase in donations around the holidays, the Salvation Army’s Major Darren Wiseman says that need has outpaced donations this year and he expects that will continue into 2018.

The Salvation Army Food Bank helped 501 people in more than 200 households in November alone. It had begun to run out of items in its pantry as early as the summer in 2017 and had to purchase food to supplement what it provided to families. In past years, that hasn’t happened until at least October. Wiseman is anticipating that the organization will need to do a second food drive in the summer next year so that it can continue helping families right through to the holidays.

“People need to realize that it’s good to give at Christmas — you can see the good it does — but for a food bank just once a year doesn’t help us to get through the whole year. We have never run out as early as we did this year,” says Wiseman, adding that while food donations are always welcome, monetary donations can help them to purchase the things they really need.

The food bank is often short on canned meat, canned salmon and canned tuna, as well as canned pasta like Chef Boyardee which Wiseman notes is helpful for families with kids.

But there is good news, still. Thanks to a $3,000 grant from the Ontario Association of Food Banks for a large refrigerator, the food bank can accept more perishable items like produce and dairy. It is hoping for another grant for a large stand-up freezer so that it can increase its capacity for frozen items, too. And Wiseman hopes long-term to be able to build a family services wing on the Salvation Army’s existing building specifically to help those in need.

Wiseman is also hoping that a pilot project with a local store that allowed the food bank to take near-expiry produce and other items that might have otherwise been thrown away will continue.

“Things are going well but the need is greater,” says Wiseman, noting that many of the people it helps are the working poor but also includes those who find themselves unexpectedly short on funds. “We don’t discriminate either way.”

The Huntsville Lake of Bays Fire Department thanked all of the volunteers — more than 400 of them — who helped to collect and sort the food, as well as those who donated to help make the drive another success.

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