June 2009 Food Bank Letter

June 15, 2009

Dear Grain Elevators:

We’d like to invite you to join the Lambton Federation of Agriculture in an exciting program to support the fight against hunger and poverty in Lambton County.  The recent downturn in the economy has created unprecedented demands on our local food banks.

• Food banks are now seeing over 1700 households a month
• 4000 Lambton County people using the food banks
• 25% of these people are new to using food banks
• 40% of these people are children

Various producer groups are working to provide aid to our food banks.  Egg producers are providing a weekly supply of eggs.  Dairy farmers contribute to a provincial program which provides milk to the food banks.  Pork and beef producers are currently discussing opportunities to donate animals to provide a supply of meat.

We are encouraging grain farmers to donate a few bushels of their crop and the monies from their sale become a cash donation to our food banks.  The farmer would receive an income tax receipt for the value of their donation.

We need your help as a grain elevator operator to firstly offer the opportunity and encourage farmers to participate and then secondly to record the donations (farmer, amount and value) so that the funds can be provided to our food banks at the end of the season.  These monies would be used to purchase food items to cover the increased need.

These funds would be sent to The Inn of the Good Shepherd which acts as a hub for the food banks in Lambton County and would be distributed to all our food banks in the county (Forest, Petrolia, Oil Springs, The Inn, Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul) as they already do with food stocks.

We encourage you to consider participating in the program and help make a difference to those struggling in our community.  If you have any questions or would like to participate, please contact either of ourselves.  Looking forward to hearing from you.