The Barrie Food Bank is making changes in light of COVID-19 concerns.
As of Monday, the Barrie Food Bank has suspended its morning drop-in program for the immediate future. The afternoon grocery program will still run for at least this week (March 16), however the program has been modified.
“We have put our clients, volunteers and staff at the forefront of safety while hopefully keeping some distance between people,” said Peter Sundborg, executive director with the Barrie Food Bank.
Normally, Sundborg said clients have to sit down and go through an interview, sharing income and expenses before they have access to food.
“Today we started pre-packaging grocery orders for everyone and let clients come in three at a time while just showing ID. It took less than five minutes. That’s the system we’ll continue to use until we can get things back to normal,” he said.
Sundborg said the foodbank is seeing shortages of bread, peanut butter, cereal, cookies, crackers, canned fruits, vegetables and soup.
“If people aren’t comfortable making an in-person food donation, they can make a donation online,” said Sundborg.
To make a financial donation to the Barrie Food Bank, click here.
“We would normally be launching an Easter Food Drive in the next week or so. We haven’t made a decision on that yet,” he said.
Sundborg says the food bank has had a decline in the number of volunteers showing up to work, however with the facility paring back services at the same time it hasn’t impacted their operations as much.
“This has been our first day of really going at it with everybody and changing the system,” said Sundborg. “We going to reassess on a day-by-day basis.”
Overall, Sundborg thinks the community needs to band together during times of trouble.
“As Canadians, I think we need to pull together and help each other out; help our neighbours out. Keep an eye on our elderly,” he said. “At the food bank, we want to do what we can with the resources we have.”
Although there is one popular food-bank item Sundborg refused to comment on.
“I don’t want to talk about toilet paper right now. We might get raided!” said Sundborg, with a laugh.
