Vancouver food bank partners with 24 new programs as record 15K people seek support monthly

The Greater Vancouver Food Bank has partnered with 24 new community agencies this year alone, as the organization races to meet record-breaking demands that are showing no signs of slowing.

In January, the food bank welcomed its biggest batch of new additions to its Community Agency Partners program to date, bringing the total to 141.

The support provided to the groups—which include housing agencies, after-school programs and First Nation centres—serves up to 450 people each month, according to the GVFB’s website.

Cynthia Boulter, the food bank’s chief operating officer, says that when she joined the foodbank in 2018, there was a four-year waitlist for the CAP program, and only 75 organizations were receiving support.

“There wasn’t enough food at the food bank to allow them to take on more agencies and share,” Boulter told CTV News on Tuesday.

Since then, she says the GVFB has repaired and revitalized donor relationships, taken on more food vendors, ramped up fundraising efforts and cleared the waiting list.

“We know many of our community agencies that we support are not accepting new clients and we continue to. So we continue to find new donors of food—we focus a lot on food that would have been going to landfills,” she said.

‘HOW MUCH MORE CAN WE DO?’

Boulter says the food bank currently serves an average of 15,000 people each month, with between 800-1,000 of those individuals receiving support for the first time.

“We have had conversations around ‘What is our ceiling? How much more can we do?’” Boulter said. “We are setting records every month for foot traffic, the number of people walking through our doors. Unfortunately we just keep breaking them and if it’s not the month before it was the month previous to that. We just have really never seen anything like it.”

Of all the people accessing GVFB services, Boulter says 60 per cent reside in Vancouver.

“It’s about the most expensive city in North America, so that’s not surprising,” she said.

FOOD INSECURITY AMONG STUDENTS

Origin Church at the University of British Columbia, which primarily serves graduate students and their families, is one of the GVFB’s top food receivers, according to Boulter.

“During the pandemic, we took some federal funding that we had never received before and we purchased about $200,000 worth of refrigeration for potential community partners. The church stepped forward and has taken on this role on behalf of the students, which is really amazing,” Boulter said.

She adds that international students are especially prone to struggling with food insecurity, since it can be difficult for them to find paid work that fits with their visa restrictions and academic commitments.

“Not to mention, you know, that the money they had saved potentially didn’t last as long as they thought it would—particularly with inflation,” said Boulter. “So when we literally heard about starving students at UBC—like fainting students, and students dumpster diving, we started looking into how we could get food out there.”

DISTRIBUTION PROBLEMS

Boulter would like to see the food bank receive more funding for refrigeration equipment, arguing it would allow for more fresh, nutritious food to be delivered to people in need.

“There’s no reason for people to be going to bed hungry—that’s the heartbreaking piece,” she said. “There’s not a shortage of food, it’s a distribution problem.”

Boulter encourages more people to go online to explore volunteer opportunities with the GVFB.

“We couldn’t live a day without our volunteers. Literally not a day,” she said.

“We all know food banks aren’t a solution to food insecurity, but we aren’t a Band-Aid. The difference this food makes in people’s lives—it really is saving lives.”