OTTAWA -- The Ottawa Food Bank spent $1.5 million on food, gift cards, supplies and additional staffing supports in the first five weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Michael Maidment, executive director of the Ottawa Food Bank in an interview with Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron, adding it will be a “daunting task” to fill the need for food banks.
In a note on its website, the food bank shows “what we were able to accomplish together during the first five weeks after COVID-19 reached Ottawa.”
The statistics show 15 per cent of people who turned to a food bank in Ottawa in the first five weeks of the pandemic were new clients.
The Ottawa Food Bank says it spent $1.5 million between March 13 and April 22 on the following:
- $550,000 on gift cards
- $650,000 in grants to member agencies
- $227,745 in extra food purchases
- $14,000 in needed supplies like boxes for hampers
- $8,000 for additional staffing support
More than 650,000 pounds of food was provided to the community through the Ottawa Food Bank member agency network.
Speaking with CTV News Ottawa, Maidment says the Ottawa Food Bank would normally spend $1.6 million on purchased food in a year, but the food bank had to spend more money during the COVID-19 pandemic because of a halt in donations.
Maidment says the $550,000 spent on gift cards helped the Ottawa Food Bank and its member agencies get through a two week window of the pandemic.
“The supply chain was under a lot of pressure, and we couldn’t obtain at the food bank all of the perishable items we needed,” Maidment said, noting the food bank was trying to buy the same items as shoppers at the start of the pandemic.
“We did the gift cards from a tactical point of view – if the food was in the grocery stores, then it made sense to give people grocery store gift cards so they could go to the grocery store where the food was.”
Maidment adds the gift cards helped give the Ottawa Food Bank a two-week period to rebuild its inventory while there was a shortage from suppliers.
The Ottawa Food Bank has received some high profile support from prominent residents of Ottawa and celebrities, along with donations from residents.
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively donated to the Ottawa Food Bank in April. A campaign started by Shopify CEO Harley Finkelstein, which included a donation from hip-hop collective the Wu-Tang Clan, raised $170,000 in just 24 hours.
Maidment says if you want to help the Ottawa Food Bank during the COVID-19 pandemic, cash donations are still the best way to help.
“It means we can buy that food in bulk, which means we can get the value, or we can do something like use the grocery store gift card, which we also buy at a discount.”
