Food bank demand rises 30 per cent in Manitoba: report

Volunteers fill the basement at Agape Table, cutting peppers and bagging pickles to help the organization give out thousands of meals each week.

Dave Fenuik, the organization’s general manager, says the number of people that use its services has jumped from 85,000 yearly visits in 2019 to 134,000 in 2022.

Fenuik expects that to spike to between 150,000 and 154,000 visits this year.

“Right now, we're still able to keep up with that 800, 900 guests every morning, but I don't know how long we can keep going to that well,” Fenuik said.

Its guests paint a bleak picture, with some saying what money they have must go towards rent and utilities, with little left over to pay for food.

It’s a theme echoed in Food Bank Canada's latest Hunger Count report, which found there were more than 57,000 food bank visits in March. Of those visits, more than 20,000 were children.

“50,000 Manitobans is enough to fill the Canada Life Centre arena and the Winnipeg Blue Bomber football stadium combined,” said Manitoba Harvest president and CEO Vince Barletta.

The demand on food banks isn’t sustainable, he said.

“In Manitoba, one in four people that use a food bank have a job. Those are numbers that we never used to see before, and the reality is inflation, inflation, inflation.”

Brandy Bobier, North End Community Renewal Corp’s food security coordinator, says community organizations across Winnipeg are working to help people put food on their tables.

"I think the best ways that we are working together to help people to get out of those cycles of poverty are by giving people a hand up, not a hand out,” Bobier said. "In the bigger picture, it's more about education, about cooking classes, about grocery shopping classes, providing alternative purchasing models."

In the meantime, Agape Table isn't expecting the need to drop anytime soon.

“(We will) probably see another spike again next year,” Feniuk said. “And hopefully that'll flatten out.”