Guelph Food Bank working to decentralize service

Donations packed in boxes line the floor and walls at the Guelph Food Bank on Nov. 26, 2024. (Colton Wiens/CTV News)

The Guelph Food Bank is adjusting to a growing number of users and plans to decentralize its services to offer food at multiple sites around the city.

Currently people can pick up food directly at the main location on Crimea St. and at ten other satellite spots around the city. Now, the food bank plans to stop offering food at the main site and expand its offerings throughout the community.

“To be closer to where people live in the neighborhoods that they are from,” Carolyn McLeod-McCarthy, the Managing Director of the Guelph Food Bank said. “People will go to those food banks, because they'll have closer access. Right now, this might be restrictive to them to be able to get food. We do see numbers increase when we do open other locations. Just because they’re closer.”

McLeod-McCarthy said by doing this, they can expand the warehouse and manage the food better.

“We're working with other organizations as well and working our way north and helping out smaller food banks. If we can become the food hub in Guelph and then help out other organizations that are also again doing the same thing, we're just trying to share the responsibilities to try to reduce the amount of work it takes at each organization,” McLeod-McCarthy said.

A sign at the Guelph Food Bank directs donors to a drop off location. Nov. 26, 2024. (Colton Wiens/CTV News)

The food bank said the need to expand services is dire. It’s currently servicing 4,000 people in the city alone.

“This is unprecedented growth. This is the highest number we've seen and it's still growing,” McLeod-McCarthy said.

“I've seen the increase, the usage going absolutely through the roof,” Trevor Robertson, an inventory specialist at the Guelph Food Bank said.

According to the food bank, right now it needs peanut butter, canned meat, cereals, canned pasta, stew and rice. While usage has gone up, donations have remained about the same.

“We have probably about three or four categories every week that I consider closed. In other words, inventory is so low that I don't have enough to give out to anybody,” Robertson said.

Peanut butter is stored on a shelf at the Guelph Food Bank on Nov. 26, 2024. (Colton Wiens/CTV News)

For the first time in its almost 35-year history, the food bank is putting together a presentation to ask the City of Guelph for help.

The food bank does have an ambitious goal of decentralizing by the end of 2025 and then adding more satellite areas so they can service more people across the city. It said it wants to become a central hub like the Food Bank of Waterloo Region’s model, which offers food to other charities  offering food assistance programs.

Meanwhile, the Cambridge Food Bank offers food directly from its main location, along with two satellite sites in Preston and Hespeler.

“We are currently working on a project to install three refrigerated lockers in Cambridge locations where food assistance is needed. Food will be delivered there from our location at 54 Ainslie St, and the individual(s) who have requested the food will be able to pick up their items at a time that works for them,” Dianne McLeod, CEO of the Cambridge Food Bank said in an email.