Peterborough’s Porch Pirates for Good are back on Saturday (May 27) for their seventh semi-annual porch food drive to help restock the dwindling shelves at Kawartha Food Share.
On Saturday morning, people are asked to leave a bag of non-perishable food items on their front porch. Beginning at 9 a.m., volunteers will drive around the city, collect the donated items, and deliver them to the Kawartha Food Share warehouse.
In keeping with the ‘porch pirates for good’ theme, many of the volunteers will be dressed in pirate garb. Organizers ask people to mark their bag of donated items as being for Porch Pirates for Good so volunteers can easily spot it from the street.
While any non-perishable food items are appreciated, items in the greatest demand include canned tuna, pasta noodles and sauce, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter, and individually packaged school snacks for children such as apple sauce, fruit cups, and chewy bars.
Other needed non-perishable food items include breakfast cereal, rice, canned soup or stew, and baby formula. Non-food items including feminine hygiene products and diapers are also needed.
Kawartha Food Share assists more than 7,600 people every month through 36 member agencies, with all 51 schools in the community using Kawartha Food Share to help with their breakfast and nutrition programs that feed over 17,000 children daily.
According to a recent report from Food Banks Canada, food banks across the country are straining under historically high demand due to inflationary food costs, low provincial social assistance rates, and housing costs. Seniors and students on fixed incomes and the working poor are increasingly turning to food banks to put food on the table for themselves and their families.
Instead of donating food, you can also help by making a monetary donation at kawarthafoodshare.com/donations.html. For every $1 donated, Kawartha Food Share can purchase up to $4 worth of food.
Porch Pirates for Good has held six spring and fall porch food drives since the pandemic began, bringing in 177,340 pounds of food for Kawartha Food Share, including 16,000 pounds during the previous porch food drive last November.
