'Numbers just continue to go up': Harvest Manitoba reports record demand in May

Harvest Manitoba is reporting record numbers for the month of May.

President and CEO Vince Barletta said there's been an increasing demand for their services.

"In this past month of May we had a record number of individuals and families come to food banks across the city of Winnipeg," Barletta said.

More than 40,000 people used Harvest Manitoba food banks last month, nearly half of which were children.

Barletta said 16,000 kids were fed by food banks in May. "Those are numbers that we've never seen before," he said.  "And the numbers just continue to go up and up and up."

One of the reasons for the increase is the end of the school year, which means the end of breakfast and lunch programs.

"Unfortunately when school programs shut down for the summer, that means a lot of hardship for many families," said Barletta.

To help those families, Harvest Manitoba runs its "Meals2Go" program in seven Winnipeg schools. The program gives students food kits to take home for the weekends.

"We continue to offer that as an 'after the bell' program in schools during the summer months so we can ensure families continue to have those snacks for themselves and their kids," Barletta said.

Despite the troubling numbers, Barletta said there is some good news: the food bank is seeing fewer new users than in recent months.

He said Harvest Manitoba has been working to help people fleeing the war in Ukraine.

"We've been working with our friends at the Ukrainian Federation of Manitoba and other organizations providing relief, and we've been seeing the number of displaced Ukrainians who are new food bank clients going down," said Barletta.

He added there are three ways Manitobans can help.

"We run on food, we run on funds, and we run on volunteer time," Barletta said. "And we ask any Manitoban that’s able to give is any one of those three."

More information can be found at the Harvest Manitoba website.