BC Association of Food Banks
Food Banks Canada is the national organization that represents the food bank community across Canada. Our members and their respective agencies serve approximately 85% of people accessing emergency food programs nation-wide. In an average month in 2009, close to 800,000 different people accessed food banks, 37% of whom were children.
Food Banks Canada’s mission is to reduce hunger in Canada by enabling an effective food bank community that addresses the short term need for food and longer term solutions.
We do this by collecting and sharing large donations of food to our Members and Affiliate Member food banks. These members then share this food – as well as food they collect locally – to people in need. Additionally we share funds that have been donated or collected by our partners to our Members. In the long term we work to reduce hunger by raising awareness of the hunger problem, collecting statistics showing the magnitude of the problem and lobbying government to create hunger-reducing policies.
In 2009, Food Banks Canada moved over 10 million pounds of food industry donations to its members through the National Food Sharing System, with almost exclusively donated transportation. In addition to food received from Food Banks Canada, community-run food banks rely primarily on volunteers to collect and distribute an estimated 150 million pounds of food per year.
To do what we do, we rely on the generosity of hardworking volunteers, corporations and donations from Canadians.