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The London Food Bank was on track on Sunday to surpass last year’s spring food delivery, with 24 hours left in its all-important Easter season campaign.
Volunteers Benjamin Booth, 14, left, and Ayden King, 13, sort donations at the London Food Bank (Derek Ruttan/The London Free Press)
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The London Food Bank was on track on Sunday to surpass last year’s spring food delivery, with 24 hours left in its all-important Easter season campaign.
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The nonprofit charity has since the annual Easter campaign began on April 8. That’s about 3,200 pounds (1,460 kilograms) more than at the same time in 2021.
“It’s been good and we expect it to continue to be good,” said co-executive director Jane Roy on Sunday. “It’s a huge boost for the agencies we support.”
This year’s spring food drive is something of a renaissance for the annual campaign, which had to go virtual during the first wave of the COVID lockdown in April 2020 and continued mostly online during the third wave of the lockdown in April 2021, although some people were doing food donations give.
“This year we really tried to encourage a return to food donation like a hybrid drive,” Roy said. “This year’s theme was Assembly. Volunteers and the Knights of Columbus have returned to hand out bags at grocery stores. There were a few schools that started food drives, which they hadn’t done before.”
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The food bank’s latest donation count includes $61,439 in cash, the food bank reported Sunday.
The agency converts cash donations into pounds of food at a rate of $2.60 per pound, a number set by Food Banks Canada, the national association that represents such agencies nationwide.
Financial contributions account for about £23,630 of the London Food Bank’s total spring food campaign so far, compared to $96,852, the equivalent of £37,251, at the same point in the 2021 campaign. Food bank officials will increase on Monday, the last day of the drive Grocery stores pick up, but donations received this week count toward the campaign total, Roy said.
Sixty percent of donations to the Spring Food Drive are distributed to other organizations and networks in the area.
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The action will also support Ukrainian refugees relocating to London in the coming weeks and months, Roy said. The Tafel has a dedicated page on its website for monetary donations intended for these refugee families.
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- When: The ten-day campaign ends on April 18, 2022
- Donate: Grocery donations are accepted at major grocery stores. Financial contributions can be made online at www.londonfoodbank.ca
- Food requirements: Non-perishable foods such as peanut butter, rice, baby food, soup, canned vegetables with no added salt, canned meat and fish, pasta and pasta sauce, healthy cereal and crackers.
- Non-Food Wishlist: Items such as diapers, toothpaste, toilet paper and laundry detergent.
