Another holiday season means another unprecedented amount of people using food banks and community kitchens.
Both the Cambridge Food Bank and Trinity Community Table (TCT) are expecting to serve record numbers in the coming months.
"We are seeing a double digit increase," said Bonny Jensen, chair at TCT. "We are doing hot meals and packed lunches, something we've never done before, it's become more normal than years prior."
Last year, TCT served over 175 hot meals during Thanksgiving, but due to the pandemic, they were served in take-away containers; this year will be a full sit-down meal and separate packed lunch.
TCT will be hosting its annual free turkey dinner for Thanksgiving on Oct. 9 at Trinity Anglican Church, 12 Blair Rd.
"We have a bunch of turkeys that were donated to us and about 20 pumpkin pies ready to go," said Jensen.
The Cambridge Food Bank is also no stranger to the changing needs of the community as detailed in their latest impact report.
According to the report, new visits are up 183 per cent with nearly one million pounds of food being donated to the food bank and over 15,000 visits the community pantry.
While the food bank does not have a designated event for Thanksgiving, they are still in need of food donations to help support the continuous growth of their client base.
"We don't do anything at Thanksgiving for folks, unfortunately it is not in our budget, but we will need thousands of lbs of food to get through the holiday season" said Amy Slack, manager of operations for the food bank.
"We're just asking and directing folks to donate at their local fire hall or any of the major grocers have bins for us."
Slack estimates that they will feed over 2,000 households in the upcoming holiday seasons.
The exponential need for food is matched by the demand for volunteers to help prep and distribute meals and food items.
"We need volunteers, strong ones," said Jensen. "We have some students from India who help us, they also use our services, but they have so much energy, it's amazing."
Jensen said it was normal to retain volunteers for over 10 years, but in today's age the turnover can be quite high.
The food bank has been able to fill over 363 new volunteer positions and are always looking for more, especially during the holidays.
All across the board, food banks and community kitchens are giving away more than they ever have, with food going out as fast as it comes in.
The Cambridge Food Bank's mobile food pantry has seen 19,150 visits in the past year and is expecting this number to climb leading up to Christmas.
"With the amazing help from the local food banks and our volunteers we know we can take on whatever comes our way, but it is getting harder as food donations slow down with everything being more expensive," added Jensen.
Trinity as well as the food bank are in constant need of items like granola bars, peanut butter, canned meat, pasta, pasta sauce, school snacks and canned vegetables and fruit.
"The time from October until the end of December are really our busiest times of the year and we're going to need everything we can," said Jensen.
Information on how to help donate or volunteer at Trinity Community Table or the Cambridge Food Bank can be found at each of their websites.
