Manitoba hog producers announced a program in April that supplies freezers and pork to food banks around the province
Thousands of Manitoba families were struggling before the pandemic and the inflation storm hit. Their struggles to get enough to eat are now much worse.
Manitoba’s hog farmers are covering some of the gaps with a much-appreciated pork donation program.
“The need is so great and so high, they just need a helping hand,” said Winston Robb, the co-ordinator of the north end Winnipeg House of Bread food bank program and the pastor of the church in which the food bank is based.
“Food prices are so high right now, whatever people can get they will take.”
Robb and people from Manitoba Pork and Manitoba Harvest, the provincial food bank network, had just finished loading a shiny new freezer with hundreds of packages of ground pork. The pork and the freezer come from a $150,000 program Manitoba Pork announced in April, which supplies freezers and pork to food banks around the province.
Thousands of Manitoba families are too poor to get all the food they need, with many relying upon food banks to provide whatever they can get. Since 2020, the number of people needing aid has doubled, putting severe stress on the system, which relies mostly upon volunteers like the House of Bread.
According to Greg Schroeder of Harvest Manitoba, the pandemic, food price inflation and a surge of refugee families from Ukraine have strained the system. Without this program, some families wouldn’t get much meat, if any, he said.
“It’s going to go a long way,” said Schroeder, who had helped load the freezer here and at the Riverwood Food Bank in another poor area in Winnipeg.
“With the prices of food going up, that’s often something that people choose not to buy then.”
The House of Bread is based out of the church basement. Every two weeks it provides 50 families packages of food and other essentials, including diapers. Altogether it supports 100 households, so each gets one package a month. Robb has been operating the program for 12 years and still seems overjoyed to be helping, even after working a full shift as a bus driver and taking his wife fishing for a couple hours.
“It’s what I do… I love it. I love people,” said Robb.
At the Riverwood Food Bank, a crew of women and men are preparing food and keeping a spotless kitchen inside Riverwood Church, a restored heritage fire hall. The church supports many programs, including support groups for women recovering from addictions and domestic violence, a mother’s program, a two-dollar “meals for neighbours” program, and the food bank.
Here, as at Robb’s church, the freezer and the donated pork are much valued because fresh meat is rarely available for hungry people. Being able to provide nutritious food to its neighbourhood is core to the mission of Riverwood.
Once a month the church invites 60 surrounding households to come for a “neighbourhood dinner,” helping build the feeling of fellowship that can help keep a struggling area happy despite its hardships.
Each month, Harvest Manitoba provides food to more than 90,000 people, including children, struggling adults, refugees and others facing hunger within Manitoba.
