By Caitlin Brezinski

Food bank pulling the plug on Share-A-Meal program

Nov 17, 2014 | 4:14 PM

The hot meal program at Prince Albert’s Share-A-Meal Food Bank will be shutting down as of March 31, 2015.

“There’s a lot of issues around it but primarily it’s a capacity issue for us,” said Wes Clark, one of the co-managers of the food bank.  “There’s only three staff here so we have a lot of difficulty trying to keep things going.”

Clark said the program does not have any form of operational funding and is strictly reliant on the general public for donations. 

The issue was discussed at a board meeting in September and members of the food bank put a call out to the community to discuss it further.  Clark said they talked to some concerned individuals and groups such as churches and community agencies in Prince Albert.   

“We sat and talked about this,” he said. “Where we were at, why we’re doing it and there was still a desire to continue to run something of that nature.”

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Clark said in the past, they’ve tried talking to different organizations to help with operating costs for the program.

“Like us, other agencies out there are struggling themselves and simply don’t have resources to send people our way,” he said. “So that’s been a constant struggle for us.”

Clark said the food bank’s mandate is to reach families and children.  While they tend to do that with the food bank, they don’t with the hot meal program.

“It’s a very different clientele than our food bank clientele so they tend to be at odds with each other in supplying of services,” he said.

Clark said this creates a lot of issues within their organization because the food bank simply does not have the resources to keep running the program. 

“If we were a well-funded, well-staffed organization, we would be able to tackle that,” he said.

What was decided at the end of the meeting was, although the food bank does not have enough resources to operate the program, it would still like to try to supply food for meals at another location. 

“How that would look, I don’t know but trying to find a place for them to go would be key,” said Clark.

According to this year’s Hunger Count, Saskatchewan’s food bank usage has grown substantially since last year, going up nearly 20 per cent.  Clark said Prince Albert’s numbers have a lot to do with that increase.

“We pretty much doubled in the last two years,” he said.  “So we’ve been struggling really hard just to get that program, keeping the food bank running and other things are suffering because of it.”

Clark said the food bank is trying hard to get something else going in the city but will not be directly involved in the operation. 

“We’re in a lot better position to try and supply food for a program rather than trying to operate a program of that nature,” he said.

Clark has written a letter to Coun. Lee Atkinson and to council before the budget was released.  Clark said it’s through community census that a meal program for the homeless continue in Prince Albert separate from the Food Bank.    

“We feel it is a community issue and it’s been shouldered on us and the other groups that are out there as well so it makes it difficult,” Clark said.

In the letters, the food bank asked the city for a building with utilities which would be able to house a meal program in the future.  Clark said they also identified a strong need for a drop-in centre for people in the community. 

“We’re definitely … quite willing to try and help others get something going in the city,” Clark said.

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