A small group (from left to right: Jim Hinds, Mission Community Foundation chair Shelley Carter, St. Joseph’s Food Bank manager Sandra Cascaden, food bank chair Cully Poston and MCF Stephen Evans) gathered on Tuesday (Dec. 19) for a donation of $28,000 from the Mission Community to St. Joseph’s Food Bank. /Mission Record Photo
$28,000 donation will go towards purchase of perishable items to give users nutritious options
The Mission Community Foundation donated $28,000 to St. Joseph’s Food Bank on Tuesday (Dec. 19).
“We are very grateful,” St. Joseph’s Food Bank manager Sandra Cascaden said. “It’s very much needed money. We get lots of food in but we’re really short on the money coming in.”
The funds will go towards food purchasing of perishable, fresh foods that provide families with more nutrition.
“When you go to your kitchen, and you turn on the tap, you get a glass of water. That’s a right — that’s a human right. And you open your fridge there should be food in there. That’s a human right too — it’s a basic need,” Mission Community Foundation board member Stephen Evans says.
Mission Community Foundation chair Shelley Carter says the board voted unanimously to provide the food bank with the donation.
“There’s such a great need for food and helping women and children and we had a lot of assets here. So this was one of the greater amounts that we gave because we know the need is there in the community,” Carter said.
St. Joseph provides its users with hampers that contain roughly 75 pounds of food that usually last between seven and 10 days. Usage is increasing for the food bank, with approximately 10 to 15 new registrations per week, Cascaden says.
“The need is certainly great in Mission as it is across Canada. It’s increasing all the time and I believe the last statistic that I saw was one in four families in Mission come to the food bank. So the money is certainly worthwhile,” St. Joseph’s chair Cully Poston said.
While donations reach a peak during the holiday season, there’s a significant dive from January to April.
“That’s when it becomes very bleak because everything came in before Christmas. Donations drop right off in the new year,” Poston said.
Article taken from the Mission City Record. Written by Dillon White Dec. 25, 2023