Massive donation fills food bank's shelves

Inuvik's food bank, almost empty just last week, has been given a donation so big it will serve the community's needs for the next three months.

The Edmonton Food Bank sent 20 palletts of food to the organization, the largest donation the Society has ever received.

It's made a big difference from what the food bank had to give out last week, says volunteer Maria Greenland.

"We had wax beans, tonnes of wax beans, but who's going to take wax beans home without anything to go with it?" she said. "I found it depressing to tell people 'Sorry, we don't have anything here for you'."

Now Greenland is dealing with stacks of shrink-wrapped soup, cereals, Kraft dinner, and tonnes of other goods.

The steady stream of people coming through the door are going away with a more balanced grocery bag.

Doug Robertson, who chairs the Inuvik Food Bank Society, says he's thrilled with the size of the donation.

He says more people are asking for food all the time, but he's not sure why.

"Really it's not something that we can put our fingers on," he says

"There doesn't seem to be a decided downturn in the economy or anything but it's very apparent by the volume of food going out at the food bank that it has picked up in the last three or four months."

The Canadian Association of Food Banks estimates that, across the North, demand went up 35 per cent last year.

1,700 N.W.T. residents visited a foodbank last year.