Thanksgiving dinner has always been a highlight of my year.
Once October rolls around, I know it won’t be long before I can sit down to turkey, stuffing, homemade gravy and coleslaw, creamy mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.
But as someone who has to carefully budget groceries for just myself every month, family meals now come with a strange new guilt.
‘How much did all of this cost?’ I find myself asking, when I pop in for dinner at my parents.
My mom’s answer: “It’s not cheap.”
With her kids out of the house and just her and my dad to feed, she said, it hasn’t been so bad, but she said she sometimes thinks about how difficult it was to pay for things when her three children were younger.
“I don’t know how young families buy groceries and pay their bills,” she told me.
This time of year it is very common for journalists to cover food drives, meal programs and free turkey dinners, and it feels good to see people coming together to make sure that people have that one special meal. Just this week I covered a food hamper event where the Hamilton Ticats helped pack 500 hampers, to give families in the region a Thanksgiving meal.
No one wants to be left out on a day that culturally is about food and family.
But that is just one meal.
People typically need three meals a day. Every day. That’s 1,095 meals a year. The Flamborough Food Bank sees about 150 clients a week, or 7,800 clients a year.
That’s around 8.5 million meals the food bank would need to provide to its clients in one year, if those clients are eating three meals a day and relying on one food bank.
From visiting the Flamborough Food Bank back in August, I know that isn’t the case. Visitors can only come bi-weekly, and often use the food bank to subsidize their own groceries. Some people visit multiple food banks around the city.
The Flamborough Food Bank has seen such a boom in needs from the community that it has had to move to a bi-weekly model, where visitors can pick up groceries every other week.
While I was at the facility, which is located behind Carlisle United Church, volunteer Andrea McComb told me that the food bank sees a flurry of donations around the holidays, but by the spring, “our shelves are empty.”
At Coun. Ted McMeekin’s community council last Thursday (Oct. 10), Flamborough Connects Executive Director Colleen Stinson shared stories about the people struggling in Flamborough and Waterdown with food insecurity.
“These problems exist in Flamborough. They are a little more invisible, but they are there,” she said.
So, here is some food for thought.
When you sit down with your family this weekend to enjoy your turkey or ham or green bean casserole, remember that food insecurity is year-round.
You may not see it, but anyone can be food insecure. A neighbour, a coworker, a person you say hello to while walking your dog. Seniors, young families, college kids trying to make ends meet…
And if you have the time to volunteer with the Flamborough Food Bank or Food with Grace, or a little extra food to donate outside of the holiday season, that is truly when it is needed the most.
