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The food bank also continues to provide community depots with food for those who can’t travel to the larger centres.
The food bank needs a large site temporarily, centrally located and preferably with a loading dock for trucks, so it can store and distribute food to its 300 to 400 users a week between October and February. Since March, the food bank has seen a 20-per-cent increase in the number of people it serves.
“We have been connecting with a lot of our contacts to find a site,” said Ou.
There are discussions about the food bank possibly using the Vancouver Playhouse, which is also run by the city.
The Vancouver Civic Theatres website states that all its venues remained closed because of COVID-19, and phone inquiries were referred to the city’s 311 hotline. The city’s communications department was unable to respond to questions by Postmedia.
“As the province moved into Phase Two of recovery, the city began planning for the reopening and alternative use of facilities, including Vancouver Civic Theatres venues and community centres, and as a result of this we are unable to make an ongoing commitment to provide space to organizations such as Greater Vancouver Food Bank,” said city spokeswoman Ellie Lambert. “We remain in conversations with (the food bank) and are looking at options to support them.”
Ou said if the food bank doesn’t find a temporary warehouse, it will have to distribute food to users out of the back of trucks, as it did in the early days of COVID-19 restrictions. But she said that limits supplies to non-perishables because the trucks are not refrigerated.
