New food bank refrigerator locker opens for after-hours access

The Food Bank of Waterloo Region has opened a refrigerator locker for anyone who can't access their services during the day.

“We're finding more and more that an individual's wage just certainly isn't enough to make ends meet. So more and more individuals who have full time jobs just don't have enough money to access food,” said Kim Wilhelm, CEO of the Food Bank of Waterloo Region.

It is located inside a community centre in Kitchener. Users can pick up their food during evening hours and on weekends. For now, the food bank is not sharing the location of the fridge.

“In time that news will spread. But at this point, we're just happy to provide this service to the community,” Wilhelm said.

“They can give us a call, let us know that they're needing to access the after hours food locker. What we'll do is we'll have them fill out a form with gathering some basic data from them and we'll set up a drop off time for them to come by the community center and pick up their hamper,” said Julie Hornick-Martyk, food assistance outreach coordinator.

Users receive a unique code each week, that gives them access to one of the six refrigerated lockers. They remove their food, and the door locks once it's closed again. There are also several non-refrigerated lockers available for shelf stable foods.

“Definitely an increase in the need of people calling in, asking for food assistance every day. So it's absolutely going to fill a great gap for folks that can't access a locker during those typical business hours,” Hornick-Martyk said.

While it is in Kitchener, the Food Bank said it's open to anyone in the region needing assistance.

The cost of the locker and its implementation was covered by a $22,920 grant from Food Banks Canada’s 2023 Access Grant.

Wilhelm said the Food Bank will be following how this program works for now, but they do hope to expand the number of refrigerators in the community in the future.