Some people in Sydney, N.S. were “Stuffing the Bus” for a good cause on Saturday.
The annual fundraiser for Loaves and Fishes comes at a time many families are struggling to make ends meet.
“It's the number one and only one we have all year, so this keeps us going all through the winter. It's very important to us,” said Marco Amati, general manager of Loaves and Fishes, a non-profit based out of Sydney.
The event takes places on Thanksgiving weekend every year, and comes at a time that the soup kitchen sees a high volume of clients.
“As you look back at Fiona and the pandemic, we went from 110 to now we're reaching 200 a day. So that's 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Our numbers just blew up,” said Amati.
Monday is the day Margaret MacDonald and her staff will be preparing Thanksgiving dinner for the clients, and the Culinary Supervisor expects to hand out hundreds of meals.
“It's got really bad, really bad. We start at 10 o'clock and we don't stop until 12 o'clock,” said MacDonald.
Statistics Canada reported last month that prices for food purchased from stores rose 6.9 per cent in August, which is down from an 8.5 per cent increase in July but still well above the month's headline inflation rate of four per cent.
Still some are staying away from a traditional Thanksgiving dinner because of the cost.
“There's quite a few people not having family dinner because of the cost of the turkey, or they're switching over to a chicken,” said Linda MacRae, coordinator of the Glace Bay Food Bank.
MacRae says they handed out over 80 meals for their Thanksgiving dinner on Friday.
“They feel bad that they can't celebrate Thanksgiving, and now they're talking about Christmas coming up and they're very defeated,” said MacRae.
In Sydney, N.S. the goal is to help as many people as possible with Saturday’s fundraising efforts.
“We're seeing a lot of families come in now, so we see children, so that's heartbreaking to see that,” said Amati.
