London Food Bank leader reflects on kindness as Thanksgiving drive sets record

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The final can has yet to be counted, but the London Food Bank’s Thanksgiving drive is already a record-breaker.  

As of Monday, the final day of its 10-day fall campaign, the food bank has brought in 44,880 kilograms of food and cash equivalents – up 2,740 kilograms from the same point in the 2023 drive. 

“Last year was a banner year. For whatever reason, people went way over and above during last year’s Thanksgiving Food Drive,” London Food Bank co-executive director Glen Pearson said Monday. “This year, we could tell, going out to the grocery stores, that something was different. People really came out.”

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The 2023 fall campaign was the best-ever for the food bank, until this year, Pearson said. The official total of the 2024 edition of the Thanksgiving Food Drive will be announced on Wednesday, but the preliminary total already has 2023 beat.

The 44,880 kilograms collected by the food bank includes about 29,451 kilograms of food and $119,275 in cash, which is converted to kilograms at a rate of $3.52 a pound. The London Food Bank, like others in the province, has gradually seen its cash donations increase as its food donations decline. 

The opening weekend of the Thanksgiving Food Drive was a slower start than in 2023, but the food bank was optimistic Londoners would come through. Every year brings standout moments of community generosity, Pearson said. 

“There was an Ivey Business School student who decided to hold a food drive,” he said. “It was massive. They originally came up with 11 (pallets) and then they came with 10 more. We had to make two trips. That really put us over the top.”  

Donations kept showing up on the front porch of his home throughout the drive from friends, neighbours and food bank clients who knew his home address because they had picked up hampers after hours, Pearson said. 

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Pearson was helping volunteers at an Old South grocery store this year when a woman came up to donate a $1 bill, currency that stopped being printed in 1989.  

“She talked about how she’s had to use the food bank lately, but she didn’t have to in the past. She used to work at a business here in the city that’s gone out of business,” he said.  “I remember feeling a little choked up. She didn’t have much, but she wanted us to have it.” 

This year’s Thanksgiving Food Drive focused on child poverty and hunger, a throwback to the food bank’s roots.  

“When we first started all those years ago, the Thanksgiving drive was called the Breakfast for Kids drive, because child poverty was rough back then,” Pearson said. “Now, it’s starting to go up again. We’re responding to it once again.”   

The food bank saw a 13.8 per cent increase in the number of children in the families seeking food from January to September, compared to the same period last year.   

The organization has served 14,649 individual children in the first nine months of 2024. 

jbieman@postmedia.com
@JenatLFPress

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