Playing the piano, reading Kurt Vonnegut, and writing poetry gets 56-year-old Mike Shoubridge through the tough times.
With whiskers growing on his chin, he grins as he pulls out music booklets from his backpack.
He leafs through them in the Centretown Emergency Food Centre at the McLeod-Stewarton United Church while he waits for his two plastic bags of condensed milk, brown bread, crackers, and other types of canned food.
“But no pickles,” he laughs. “Pickles is a treat for me.”
Shoubridge says the donations are important because they make a difference whether he eats or not.
“There are also some single moms, and those kinds of situations,” he says. “And they don’t get enough social assistance to eat well.”
Kerry Kaiser, co-ordinator of the centre, says it has experienced a high volume of clients, while donations of food have been down.
“I’m not sure why the client base is up,” says Kaiser. “It’s hard to pinpoint.”
Among the shelves of the food centre’s stock room, volunteer Gay Richardson says she’s not sure of the exact reason, but has an idea of why there might be more food centre users recently.
“Obviously, people’s housing costs outweigh their income levels,” says Richardson. “They’re basically short of money.”
Shoubridge relies on the food centre a few times a year, and says many people who live in suburban areas aren’t exposed to homelessness and poverty, which is why some families might not donate as much.
“They probably have no idea how much their donations are missed” he says.
Kaiser says the centre also had a hard time getting the public involved in donating.
“We’re the business that wants to be out of business,” she says.
Dan Clark, Kaiser’s assistant at the food centre, says the church has many ways of coping with the decrease in donations.
He says the food centre is supported by about 25 other churches in the city, and the centre often receives donations from Hartman’s grocery store.
“Usually when we’re low on food, we’ll appeal to the churches,”
he says. “That’s where we go in a dire straights situation.”
Churches will often donate cheques rather than food, says Clark, so the centre can go out and buy the things they need.
To donate, Clark says anyone can stop by the church in person and drop off food or cheques.
Kaiser says she recently bought $365 worth of tuna for the food centre.
Richardson says that it’s also short on canned salmon and other necessities like diapers.
The centre also offers emergency bags of food, which are given out to people who have used up their monthly supply of food.
Richardson and her fellow volunteers had as many as four emergency bags given out in one day.
Shoubridge, who worked in restaurants as a cook for more than 20 years, has been visiting the food centre for the past two years.
Due to an arthritic foot, he’s unable to stand on his feet for very long, and he can’t work anymore.
“There’s a lot of good people, and people who are physically, emotionally, and psychologically incapable of feeding themselves,” says Shoubridge. “[The centre] is a great band-aid, but it’s not a cure.”