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More people using food banks
FILE - Prime Minister Stephen Harper packs a food hamper with volunteer Marion Purcell during a visit to the Calgary Poppy Fund Veterans Food Bank in Calgary, Friday, April 2, 2010. A new report says food-bank use in Canada has risen 9.2 per cent in the past year, mainly because the recession is still hitting poor people hard.Food Banks Canada says the number of people using food banks has skyrocketed in the past two years - by 28 per cent since 2008 and now at the highest level since 1997. (JEFF MCINTOSH / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
WINNIPEG — The number of people forced to rely on food banks in Manitoba has jumped dramatically.
David Northcott, executive director of Winnipeg Harvest and president of the Manitoba Association of Food Banks, said today that there has been a 21 per cent jump in food bank use across the province from March 2009 to March 2010.
"These numbers are distressing," he said at a news conference.
"We call on all levels of government to work with our communities to end hunger for everyone."
Northcott said children, seniors, immigrants and refugees are some of the hardest hit people using the food bank.
In March 2009, almost 48,000 people used a food bank in Manitoba, but a year later the number had jumped to almost 58,000.
Nationally, the number of people relying on a food bank went up by 18 per cent from 2008 to 2009 — the largest year over year increase since the numbers began being compiled in 1989.
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