'Smacks of desperation': Donated baby formula being resold online
Harvest Manitoba is sounding the alarm over concerns baby formula the non-profit donated to those in need is being resold online.
Over the weekend, staff came across Facebook posts advertising formula up for grabs for $40 - despite the boxes marked with “not for resale - Harvest Manitoba.”
The organization says this type of behaviour could be keeping families from accessing formula they need through its First Steps program.
"We help about 700 infants with the baby formula program. They get two boxes of baby formula. They'll get some baby food and some baby pouches, some diapers - just to help them make ends meet so they don't have to purchase the items themselves,” Harvest Manitoba’s director of food and fundraising Colleen McVarish told CTV News Winnipeg in an interview Monday.
To register for the program, people with babies must provide a medical number or the baby's bracelet from the hospital where they were born.
This is the second time in the past year Harvest Manitoba has discovered donated formula up for sale online.
"It just says how hard things are out there, that people are actually having to choose to sell baby formula, and it's become a commodity in our province,” said Kate Kehler, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.
Furthermore, she says this is a sign of an already pressing issue in our province --- child poverty.
According to Campaign 2000, a report published yearly, Manitoba has a child poverty rate of 27.2 per cent when it comes to children under six, which is 11 per cent higher than the national average.
Parents struggling to make ends meet are being forced to make tough choices, Kehler said.
"They have enough to tide themselves over until or tide their child over until they are expecting another a bit of money - then that's what they're doing in order to get by,” she said.
That could mean selling leftover formula to pay rent or bills – a move she says smacks of desperation.
McVarish says Harvest Manitoba is here to help anyone in that situation.
"If you're selling this product online and you need assistance, call our food lines and we can help you out."
Meantime, the organization is asking anyone who comes across these posts online to get in touch with them.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
DEVELOPING Latest updates on the major wildfires burning in Canada
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN sportscaster Darren Dutchyshen has died
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
Toronto man killed his mother and decapitated her — but it wasn't murder, lawyers argue
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during at his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
He had dreams of running for Canada in the Olympics, then he learned his family would be deported
A burgeoning track star says his dream of going to the Olympics is being derailed by a deportation order after Immigration officials rejected his family’s claim for asylum
Father charged with second-degree murder in daughter's stabbing death southwest of Montreal
A father has been charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his 34-year-old daughter in southern Quebec.
Teen died from eating a spicy chip as part of social media challenge, autopsy report concludes
A medical examiner says a Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge died from ingesting a substance 'with a high capsaicin concentration.'
Kidnapped by her father and kept in a crawl space: Court documents reveal Montreal horror story
A Montreal father who kidnapped his daughter who has autism and lied to police when they asked where she was should serve three years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said.
Ontario calls on Toronto to drop 'disastrous' drug decriminalization request
The province’s health minister and solicitor general are urging Toronto to rescind its request to decriminalize simple possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use, calling the proposal 'misguided' and 'disastrous.'
Trudeau calls New Brunswick's Conservative government a 'disgrace' on women's rights
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assailed New Brunswick's premier and other conservative leaders on Thursday, calling out the provincial government's position on abortion, LGBTQ youth and climate change.