Three decades after launching its very first Spring Food Drive, the London Food Bank is continuing the tradition as demand for its services continues to grow.
The 30th annual Spring Food Drive kicked off on Friday at the food bank's warehouse at 926 Leathorne St. Members of the London Fire Department and St. John Ambulance, the two first organizations to assist with the food drive, joined food bank officials for the launch.
The co-executive director of the food bank, Glen Pearson, said from the very first food drive, Londoners have always been extremely generous.
"That was one of the biggest things I learned from the very first food drive 30 years ago. We were expecting about 40,000 lbs worth of food, we'd never done anything like that before and we ended up getting almost 200,00 lbs worth of food," said Pearson. "That showed me that this community is really engaged on subjects around food and food security. It's very heartening."
More than 60,000 bags will be delivered in Saturday’s London Free Press, with another 40,000 expected to be handed out at grocery stores. Londoners are asked to fill the bags with non-perishables and drop them off at grocery stores or London fire halls.
Throughout the first three months of 2017, an average of 3,550 families have relied on the food bank's services monthly, that's a 2.1% increase over the same time last year.
"The thing we try to remind people is that as we do this stretch now between spring and summer we get a lot of demand coming in during that time. This food drive is really essential at reminding the public that as we move towards summer we really need to help these families and it's really the food we get in this drive that helps us to bridge that gap," said Pearson.
Roughly 60% of all food donated will be divided up among 25 other social agencies and programs in the city, with only the remaining 40% going to stock food bank shelves.
Last year, 67,697 lbs of food was collected during the spring food drive.
The food drive runs until April 17.
