Hi there. Janice here. I’m just writing this as I’m on the skytrain because it’s so important and I want to get everything down while it’s fresh in my memory.  So just an hour or so ago, Troy, Al, Hao, and I went to visit the Surrey Food Bank for the first time as "generals" of the SIFEHungerArmy.  In short, it was a huge eye opener.  For myself, it was the first time I had ever been to a food bank actually.

 
As we walked into the building at around 12pm, there were a bunch of volunteers in a row under a few tents.  In front of them were various types of food, like a huge box of green beans.  More on this later.

The afternoon started out with a tour led by Katrina Albert, the events and fundraising assistant for the Surrey Food Bank.  We got a tour of the warehouse, which was actually bigger than I had imagined.  That isn’t to say that it has “more than enough in food”, but due to a spike in donations during the holidays, Katrina mentioned that there would be enough food to last until summer.

Something that Katrina emphasized as she led us through the tour was that the clients of the food bank were normal people, just like us.  When she said that, I was a bit taken aback but also a bit hesitant to believe that.  Like I said, it being my first time at the food bank, my understanding of a food bank was very shallow.  She mentioned that a little group activity they did called "meeting the banks, which involved a role playing session, gave people really good sense of how that was true – something we did later in the tour.

We went to a different part of the warehouse, where volunteers sorted hampers – each different in size, depending on the client’s family size.  Something that I should note here is that clients are allowed to collect food here a maximum of once every two weeks.  New mothers, on the other hand, were allowed to come every Wednesday to collect items such as formula, diapers, and cereal.

As the tour ended, I saw some clients who had just collected food exit.  They looked like any regular people you’d see anywhere and I would’ve never expected them to go to the food bank.  Once we were back outside again, I noticed a volunteer help an elderly woman fill a bag with the string beans.  Once again, I would’ve never suspected that she went to the food bank either.

Back upstairs, we chatted with Marilyn Herrmann, the executive director of SFB.   She pointed to a map of Surrey covered with little orange dots.  These dots represent all the households that are clients of SFB.  Originally, this map was intended to give them a sense of where they would want to relocate if they ever need to, but I guess it’s a bit hard to choose with this realization.  Troy, who lives in Surrey, was shocked and noticed that there were dots in the area he lived in as well.

Katrina, Al, Troy, and myself

Afterwards, we went to the boardroom where we did the “Meet the Bank” roleplay activity.  In the situation, Al, who was a single mother of a 5 year old child (played by Hao), had $1520 in monthly income at minimum wage.  After deducting basic necessities (not including food), such as tax, rent, utilities, telephone and more, she had only $180 left for everything else.  Wow.  Being in finance and accounting, I’m a fairly “numbers” sort of person – I admit sometimes I get a bit excited seeing numbers.  But not that number.  So Katrina was right, this is an issue for normal people.

As I'm finishing up this post on the skytrain, I pull out her name card from my pocket to double check her email, and I notice the back with the SFB slogan. “People Like You”.