By Adam Donnelly

Facing Hunger: The Kamloops Food Bank’s Community Partners

Feb 21, 2019 | 3:59 PM

KAMLOOPS — Week in and week out, the Kamloops Food Bank supplies hundreds of individuals and families with the food they need to make it through until the next hamper; through the FoodShare program, they also help supply dozens of community agencies with the means to provide meals to hundreds more of the city’s vulnerable population. In the third instalment of our series ‘Facing Hunger,’ we look at a few of the programs the food bank supports, as they work with their partners to feed the future in our city.

Early Friday morning and all’s quiet at the Kamloops Food Bank – until an army of volunteers descends on the warehouse floor to pack backpacks full of food for School District #73 students.

“We’re actually at 122 backpacks that are packed every single Friday morning at 7:00 am here at the Food Bank,” Geralyn Alain, Director of Marketing & Communications with the United Way TNC explains.

It’s called the Starfish Backpack program, and it’s a partnership between the Food Bank, the United Way TNC, a local Rotary Club and the Kamloops-Thompson School District. The backpacks are sent home every Friday with kids who otherwise might not have food for the weekend.

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“A lot of these kids are being supported by school programs during the week, but come Friday they’re going home to an empty cupboard or empty fridge,” Alain says. “That doesn’t bode well for them coming back to school Monday ready to learn.”

The backpacks are just one of the programs the Food Bank supplies every week. The Pit Stop Program provides meals to people every Sunday out of the kitchen at the United Church. They’re able to feed hundreds of guests every week thanks to the help of the Kamloops Food Bank FoodShare program.

“Not only do we have the supplies that we need for the FoodShare program, but it means also that because they’re so generous, because the program is running so efficiently, all the way from the top down to us,  we can provide extremely generous portions,” Pit Stop Program Coordinator Rick Windjack explains.

The Boys and Girls Club also receives food from the Food Bank, that they use to provide meals and snacks to every single kid who takes part in their programs.

“I guess the term is hangry,” Boys & Girls Club Executive Director Traci Anderson says. “It’s our first go-to if a child’s acting out. ‘Are you hungry? When was the last time you ate? Let’s get you a snack’”

Pit Stop and The Boys & Girls Club are just two of the programs the Food Bank supported in 2018.

“Last year we served 60 agencies that make meals,” Food Bank Executive Director Bernadette Siracky says. “Several of the were Ask Wellness programs, Pit Stop, Boys & Girls Club, 10 programs in the school district. We’re getting that product out into the community in a really powerful way.”

For both Rick and Traci and the programs they run, the Food Share program is vital to their operation. It extends their reach, while still being adaptive to the individual needs of each program.

“I know I can call them up and say we’re seeing more hungry kids and they’ll increase our FoodShare,” Anderson says. “They’re really responsive that way, and we’re so, so appreciative, as a non-profit.”

“If we had to buy all the food we that we needed here and didn’t have the association with the Food Bank, our very manageable budget becomes pretty much untenable,” Windjack says. “We would not be able to do it, because we would need to raise a lot more money.”