{"id":7157,"date":"2024-04-17T16:26:52","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T19:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=7157"},"modified":"2024-04-17T16:29:28","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T19:29:28","slug":"queens-county-food-bank-copes-with-decreased-donations-higher-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2024\/04\/17\/queens-county-food-bank-copes-with-decreased-donations-higher-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens County Food Bank copes with lower donations, higher demand"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shelly Panczyk is the chairwoman of the Queens County Food Bank in Liverpool. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

More people are using the Queens County Food Bank at the same time as donations are dropping.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shelly Panczyk, chairwoman of the food bank on Main Street in Liverpool, says the charity saw 4,993 people last year. Of those, 1,494 were children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s up markedly from when she started at the charity four years ago. She said back then, they\u2019d see 40 families a week. Now, it\u2019s closer to 55 families a week.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just want people to realize that this is a very, very busy place. I call this the third grocery store in Queens County.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis situation (our clients are) in, they can\u2019t help it. We\u2019ve seen people in here, husband and wife, each of them working. This is going to get worse before it ever gets better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Clients can go to the food bank every 21 days to stock up on food and household items. The food bank also operates a thrift store on Main Street, about a block away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, revenue at the food bank alone was down by $107,000. But expenses climbed by $17,000. The thrift store, though, generated $82,000 in net income for the food bank.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Panczyk and the board reported those figures at the charity\u2019s recent annual general meeting. She clarified that part of the reason for the revenue drop in 2023 was that they didn\u2019t receive any large grants like they did the year before.<\/span><\/p>\n

Panczyk said the food bank does have savings in the bank. But she said in an interview that without the income from the thrift store, they would be in trouble.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Without that store, this food bank would not be running,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both the food bank and the thrift store are run entirely by volunteers. They have as many as 50 through the year. There are no paid staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt costs $140,000 a year to run this food bank, just this building. And we don\u2019t get that in donations. That store … is our little gold mine.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Panczyk said that older people and churches used to be among their biggest donors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe donors were the people that are in their 80s and 90s and now have died. Churches were always a good donation, because churches were the ones that started most food banks. Churches are closing, their parishioners are down.”<\/span><\/p>\n

A study released in February<\/a> by food rescue organization Second Harvest showed that demand for food charity in Canada is expected to rise by 18 per cent this year. The study found that on average, each charity needs an extra $76,000 to meet that increased demand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Panczyk says monetary and food donations have dropped, though she says that the local Sobeys and Superstore are still major food donors. And they receive regular shipments from Feed Nova Scotia.<\/span><\/p>\n

But she said she still has to buy a lot of food to serve their clients.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy grocery bill here for a month is anywhere from $4-6,000.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She said four years ago, the food bank would buy 200 pounds of hamburger to distribute over three months.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m buying 500 pounds. They used to pay $2.99 (a pound) and I have to wait until it goes on sale and I pay almost $5 a pound. And I give out 200 pounds of that a month now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The food bank is also required to stock 14 staple food items such as peanut butter, crackers, pasta sauce and spaghetti. They have to buy many of those items.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And Panczyk says she has to make sure she can cater to more diverse food needs, as more families of various backgrounds move to Queens County.<\/span><\/p>\n

She has applied for grants to begin to stock more food variety, such as halal meats or basmati rice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is a whole new scenario for food banks, especially in these smaller communities that we never had before.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Panczyk said she\u2019s grateful for the donors they do have and for the community support of the thrift store.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But she said they need more cash donations so that they can continue to serve a growing and more diverse clientele.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u00a0 want to be starting out again not what these people are going through. I think this is almost as bad as the Depression, trying to fight your way through.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/foodbankagmstoryapr1724.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More people are using the Queens County Food Bank at the same time as donations are dropping. Shelly Panczyk, chairwoman of the food bank on Main Street in Liverpool, says the charity saw 4,993 people last year. Of those, 1,494 were children.\u00a0 That\u2019s up markedly from when she started at the charity four years ago. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[2072,949,2074,2077,2075,2073,39,156,2071,2076,539],"class_list":["post-7157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-charity","tag-donations","tag-food","tag-food-banks","tag-food-rescue","tag-food-security","tag-liverpool","tag-queens-county-food-bank","tag-queens-county-food-bank-thrift-store","tag-second-harvest","tag-shelly-panczyk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7157"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7163,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157\/revisions\/7163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}