No one should have to choose between eating or paying the rent, eating or buying necessary medications, eating or getting clothes for your children. No one should have to choose. Yet every week in Huntsville, families, unattached teenagers, single seniors, and displaced people make that choice, often doing without or neglecting one of their fundamental needs.
Food insecurity impacts families and individuals for many reasons, forcing many to rely heavily and increasingly on food banks throughout Ontario. In Huntsville, reliance on food banks provided by the Salvation Army and the Table Soup Kitchen Foundation, and others is at historical highs.
Volunteers, through outreach programs at Trinity United Church and All Saints’ Anglican Church, prepare and deliver 25 lunches per day, three days a week, to Huntsville High School. Volunteers also run a free breakfast program at the high school, serving 80–100 students daily. The Door Youth Centre provides free lunch to high school students every Wednesday and Friday during the school year, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 pm. Food4Kids, Muskoka, provides food for children over the weekends to ensure that referred children are adequately fed. The food is packed, prepared, and supplied by volunteers.
Donations, financial and pre-packaged food to support these and other programs are critical, especially at this time of the year.
Food Banks Canada reported the following salient findings in the 2024 HungerCount Report: In March 2024, there were over 2 million visits to food banks in Canada — the highest number in history. Food bank usage represents a 90% increase compared to March 2019, and there are signs that the food bank system is reaching its absolute limit. One-third of food bank clients are children.
Household incomes in Huntsville, based on the 2022 Statistics Canada Census, indicate that 11% of households in the community report incomes below the national poverty line, referred to as Market Basket Measure, which is slightly above the 2022 national average of 9.9%. Trends indicate that poverty levels are rising to pre-pandemic levels after a five-year period of decline.
Canadians facing poverty stratify into several groups, with the most vulnerable being unattached individuals and particularly, “unattached seniors, the poverty rate (13.8%) was more than four times the rate for people in senior families (3.3%). In 2022, though the poverty rate for unattached seniors was less than half of the poverty rate for unattached non-seniors (31.0%),” female-led one-parent families, people with disabilities and recent immigrants were more likely to subsist on incomes below the poverty line, according to Canadian Income Survey, 2022.
“One-parent families (43.4%) and unattached non-seniors (30.5%) remained at a particularly high risk of food insecurity,” states the report. These startling findings are reflected in the community of Huntsville.
“In Ontario, the data shows the drivers of food insecurity are a result of the rapid spike in the cost of living, which many incomes have not kept up with. Social housing supports, lack of affordable housing, food costs skyrocketing, and seasonal incomes all have had their effects. Food Banks were only ever designed to be a temporary measure; they were never meant to patch holes in our social safety net,” according to Krystal Fuller, Community Ministries Coordinator for the Huntsville Salvation Army, in a report submitted to Huntsville Doppler.
Fuller, who has worked at the Huntsville Salvation Army for nine years and is grateful for the assistance she received as a child in a single-parent household, echoes the concerns of food banks across the province related to concerns that a potential crisis is unfolding with demand for services rapidly outstripping supply. She has seen first-hand clients struggling to survive amid mounting inflationary pressures and the cost of rents soaring. The average monthly rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Huntsville is $1,114, consuming more than 70% of the monthly income of those on fixed incomes, part-time employment, or social assistance.
Fuller is an articulate advocate for aiding those in need. She possesses a keen interest in and concern for the people she meets with on a weekly basis as administrator for the Salvation Army Foodbank—one of the oldest and longest-serving in Huntsville, helping between 250 and 300 households per month. The food bank operates by appointment only, Monday & Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at 4 Mary Street East, Huntsville.
“Through our food bank, we are able to assist with non-perishable food items as well as healthy fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, bread, and healthy Frozen proteins for individuals and families struggling with food insecurity,” explained Fuller.
Appreciated is also the “Christmas Assistance Program,” which provides individuals and families food for Christmas and the holiday season and gifts for their children at Christmas. Through this program, we anticipate assisting over 400 and more families,” said Fuller.
Heather Cassie, founder and Executive Director of the Table Soup Kitchen Foundation, reported that they had provided food through their food bank and meals to 8.1% of Huntsville’s’ population, serving 9,667 guests in 2023, 70% of which come directly from Huntsville. Founded as a soup kitchen, the Table continues to provide prepared meals—made on-site and through the food bank, frozen and prepackaged foods, free clothing, and other assistance. The Men’s Hostel also provides housing for eight men at a time, arranged through a waitlist. Thirty guests stayed, on average, 110 nights at the hostel. The Table is open to all in need.
Cassie is an energetic, ebullient individual who radiates incredibly positive energy, drive, and determination to achieve her chosen mission to help those unable to or obstructed from helping themselves. The Table is a beehive of activities with beaming volunteers engaged in a vast assortment of duties. With approximately eighty volunteers, Cassie hopes to evolve the undertakings of the Table into more caring and serving, including a return to sit-down soup kitchen meals, tentatively planned in 2025 on Monday nights at Trinity United Church, a return to pre-pandemic services.
Cassie sums up her mission to help the “hurting, hungry, and unhoused” as one based on compassion and empathy.
Amongst their many service innovations, not only cooking meals, desserts, and other items on-site, the Table also has an extensive food rescue program, saving perfectly edible foods slightly past sell-by dates from disposal for use by families desperate for fresh produce.
Nothing is accomplished in these efforts to address what can only be described as a widening gap between “the haves and have-nots” without the immense charity of community sponsors—both corporate and individual.
For the Salvation Army, December is a crucial period for fundraising with four separate initiatives.
Throughout December, the Annual Christmas Kettle Campaign is located outside of local businesses.
Operation Porchlight Food Drive, held by the Huntsville Lake of Bays Fire Department, for one night on Wednesday, December 4, 2024. Starting at 6 p.m., firetrucks and community partners collect food from houses that leave their porchlight on with donations of non-perishable foods. Food donations can also be dropped off at the Salvation Army Church or at local fire halls. Last year, approximately 40,000 lbs of food were donated in one night by Huntsville residents.
Krystal Fuller is all smiles as she stands by the food collected during the 2023 food drive for the Salvation Army Food Bank. (Photo Tamara de la Vega).
On Friday, December 6, 2024, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., the Moose Radiothon105.5FM will help raise financial contributions in support of those in need.
On Saturday, December 7th, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Huntsville Canadian Tire and Huntsville Walmart Stores, OPP Stuff A Cruiser Event collects new unwrapped toys as part of the annual local Christmas Toy Program.
The Table Soup Kitchen Foundation will be working hard to raise funds through various events, mainly through the Coldest Night of Year Walk scheduled for the third Saturday of February 22, 2025, with the goal of generating $100,000.
On Wednesday, December 18, 2024, singer and composer and Heather’s sister Ruth Cassie will hold the ‘Dreamlife of Angels’ Annual Christmas Concert at All Saints’ Anglican Church from 7-8 p.m. Tickets are available at Dreamlife of Angels Tickets Fundraiser . All proceeds will be donated to the Table.
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St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Huntsville offers a free hot lunch every Tuesday beginning October until the end of April, in their church hall. We serve a full three course meal at 12. All are welcome.