Food Bank

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Hours : Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Who can come? Individuals and families who live in our service area can use our food bank once a month. Our service area is north of Bloor, south of St. Clair, west of Dovercourt and east of Keele.

What to bring? In order to register with the food bank, people must show some kind of ID that has their name and address on it. They also need to bring ID for anyone else who will be sharing the food with them. Once this has been shown, people will be given a food bank membership card.

How does it work? People can come to the food bank once each month - for example, once in January, once in February and so on.

We try to give all food bank members a two to three day supply of food. However, we receive food from donations, and some days we have more food than others. While we try our best to ensure people are happy with their food, what we have to give changes according to what is given to us. We have to work within the limitations of our food supply.

We believe that having enough food should be a basic human right, so that's why we try not to put people through the wringer when they come to the food bank. It's difficult enough to come and look for help and we see how hard people try to make ends meet. That's why anyone who lives in our neighbourhood has the right to receive food from our food bank once a month. We don't have enough food to solve all of people's food problems, but we can do our best to make the experience of using the food bank as comfortable as possible.

"The Stop's food bank is very different than others I have had to use in the past. There's always lots going on and there is always someone to talk to - not like other food banks that just hand out food." - a user.

Over the past few years, we've seen an incredible 60% increase for this service. Almost 8,000 individuals use the food bank annually. Forty-eight per cent of people we help are children and youth. Seventy-eight percent of people are on social assistance. Many of these community members come on a monthly basis.

The more than 5,000 hours per year put in by 55 dedicated volunteers enables us to provide food for over 190,000 meals. Our food bank is one of the busiest and best in the city.

"I would not know what to do if the Food Bank were not here - except go without. The food is especially needed during the last few days of the month." - a user.

There are a number of things that makes our food bank unique, most notably, that we aim to empower our members and program participants, rather that simply providing handouts:

• users of the food bank are encouraged to become members of the agency (with a series of rights and responsibilities)
• wherever possible, users of the food bank have some choice in which foods they can have
• we don't pre-package the food hampers
• community members are encouraged to give feedback through the advisory committee
• we meet with every member every time they come in, to check on how they are doing and if they require further assistance beyond food
• we refer people to other partnering agencies

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