By Jeff Helsdon
Editor
Trial by fire might be a good way to describe starting the position of food bank coordinator before Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Samantha Hamilton started as the coordinator of the Helping Hand Food Bank at the end of September. With Thanksgiving only days away, she didn’t have much time to learn the ropes—not that there’s really a time when the food bank isn’t busy. With more time on the job, she is well prepared for Christmas and has some new ideas and approaches.
Hamilton is from Hamilton originally and moved here 11 years ago after she visited Tillsonburg and “fell in love with it.” She loved it so much that she also moved her parents to town. As a real estate agent, she was involved in Hockey Moms and several committees in town. Hamilton knew some of her volunteer opportunities were time limited and would not continue in the new year, so she started looking and came across the advertisement for Tillsonburg Helping Hand Food Bank coordinator.
“I think I could do that and do that well,” she recounted of her emotions after reading the advertisement. “While it’s not volunteer, it’s a way to poslitively ipact the community.”
She has a business degree and went into the job hoping to feed as many people as she could.
“I just want to give back,” she said. “The volunteers are amazing and hold this place together beautifully.”
One of her focuses is on increasing the amount of fresh food such as meat, fresh fruit and vegetables. A couple of local farms provide apples, carrots and potatoes, plus there is support from the grocery stores.
“All of the grocery stores in town are amazing in helping wherever they can,” Hamilton said.
In addition, the food bank receives fresh food from Feed Ontario, a central agency that supplies food banks across the province.
Hamilton is also organizing the Christmas food drive. The regular drop-offs of Tuesday or Wednesday mornings have been added to with evening drop-offs on Dec. 4 and 11 from 6 to 8. On Dec. 11, the U-15 Tornado LL 2 Intact hockey team will be accepting donations at the door. The food bank quit doing food drives since COVID, but the Salvation Army did revive these. The two groups have a good working relationship, with the Salvation Army providing food to the food bank.
She also has positive relationships with community partners who collect food. Sobeys and Zehrs have bins for the Helping Hand Food Bank, and Metro has a program where people can purchase food for the food bank. Many businesses have been collecting food and donating food as well.
“There are so many,” Hamilton said of the business support. “I get three or four calls per day for businesses doing food drivves. It’s a good community.”
The food bank supplies weekly service to those who have signed up, and people can come up to twice per month. The amount of food is based on the number of people in the family. There are 728 individuals, or 359 households, registered with the Helping Hand Food Bank. This year, there are 287 new clients, and Hamilton said there are people who no longer need support.
She did point out a statistic she heard recently: one in five Canadians using a food bank has a job.
“It’s just overall the prices are insane, especially grocery prices,” she said.
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