Samaritan House Ministries continues to see the extensive support from across the Westman Region with a wide variety of locally grown fruit and vegetables gracing their shelves and bins!
"It's been very busy this past summer, with our numbers increasing steadily," shares Executive Director, Barb McNish. "We have new people coming all the time."
McNish says the best way to explain this increase is to compare the numbers of food hampers given out to new families this year to last year. Last year in total throughout 2023, the Samaritan House food bank provided food hampers to 1052 new families.
"This year, so far, as of the end of August we had 812," she explains. "So, you add that together and we're now looking at 1864 new people since we started 2023. So, in 2 years almost 2000 new people coming in who have never used a foodbank before."
And 2024 isn't over yet.
McNish says the same significant increase is in the number of food hampers in total when you compare 2023 to the end of August 2024.
"Last year we gave about 36,000 food hampers in total and this year, as of the end of August, they are almost at 35,000. So, we have probably reached our 2023 number already. This doesn't include September to the end of December."
"It's alarming, especially when you see the numbers of the new people coming in who have never used the food bank before," she adds. "Our donations continue to be steady. Our donations are probably much the same as we've had before but because the demand is higher it's harder, right?"
"But people are so gracious to donate and so we are so very, very grateful for people who continue to support us, either through food donations, prayer and monetary donations," she says. "But our staff and our volunteers are amazing, and so are our donors!"
In addition to the regular donors, Samaritan House Ministries has seen many, many people give of their garden produce, as well as non-perishables through the Fill the Freightliner and Cram the Cruiser food drives in the City of Brandon. As well Samaritan House benefited through Co-op's Fuel Good Day in mid-September where they collected $3600 through Heritage Co-op's gas bar. Now in October, specific schools in Brandon will also be doing their annual food drives, and the United Way continues their support in October.
Now in the Fall season, garden produce will trickle down to a close, but the need for fruit and vegetables continues. So, folks are invited to donate canned fruit and vegetables to the food bank. As always, pastas and sauce, baby diapers, and proteins and soups are of the greatest demand.
Please listen to more with Barbara McNish below!
"I've said this since I got here, we don't do this alone. We don't. We do it with God's help. This is His ministry. We do it with people who help, who support us by volunteering, by staff who are working, our Board, and our donors," shares McNish. "The faithfulness of it all is just amazing!"