The Barrhaven Food Cupboard has helped provide a balanced diet to food insecure residents of the Barrhaven area for years. Their annual Holiday Hamper Program gives low-income clients equal opportunity to access food during the holiday season. 

This year, the Barrhaven Food Cupboard has received requests to provide over 350 food hampers, and counting. According to CEO George MacDonald, that number has increased from 198 hampers distributed in 2019.

“This is a tough time of year for many people and they want to be able to to feed their family, but also to have a little extra money to buy gifts for their kids,” says MacDonald. “So we are in a position to provide the food end of that for many people that are hurting at this time of year.”

In Ottawa, an estimated 39,000 residents access food banks every month. The Barrhaven Food Cupboard serves roughly 1,500 of them on a monthly basis.

MacDonald says the holiday hamper program will likely provide food for many families during the holidays who would be unable to afford it themselves, but it will also keep the food bank going through the new year.

“People are more generous during the November-December period because of the holiday season,” says MacDonald. “So our collection...of food donations ramps up dramatically. This is in large part due to the local grocery stores participating in food collection. The cash donations that we get also ramp up for the same reason. We often find that that inventory… that we get carries us through into [the] New Year by quite a ways. But once you get down to sort of late spring—March, April, May—our inventory is usually quite low. And from time-to-time we have to purchase food.”

In fact, MacDonald says the food bank often needs to purchase food when there is high demand. The Ottawa Food Bank, the largest food bank in the city, spends around $4,000,000 every year on food, according to an article in the Ottawa Citizen. 

The Barrhaven food cupboard, run entirely by volunteers, receives about 40 orders per week, distributing food and other necessities to around 350 families every month. They largely depend on cash donations from local fundraisers to supplement their stockpile. 

But in the warmer months, they also have their own source of produce to help bolster distributing power.

“We're part of a community garden,” says MacDonald. “So we grow some of our own produce during the summertime. and volunteers do that as well. So we're knit into the community in that way.” 

Ottawa Public Health (OPH) states that “the root of food insecurity is poverty.” OPH estimates that the cost of food in Ottawa has risen by about 22 per cent since 2009. In 2019, the average cost to feed a family of four every month was $901.

Approximately 12 per cent of Ottawa residents are considered low-income. In addition, Black and Indigenous people, who already face higher levels of poverty than non-racialized people, are three times more likely to experience food insecurity.

MacDonald says the majority of clients who visit the Barrhaven Food Cupboard are racialized, or experience some degree of marginalization.

“Certainly, immigrants to Canada, Black and visible minorities are a large part of our clientele,” says MacDonald. “Other people may have lost a job for a short period of time and come to us.” 

MacDonald wants people to know that the services offered by the Barrhaven Food Cupboard, and other local food banks, are free and accessible to anyone who needs them.

To access a food bank in your area, or to make a donation, click here.