A month-long collaboration between the Picton United Church Food Bank and Wild Lot Farm Distillery called Soup for a Cause generated almost $3,000 to aid food insecurity. 

Wild Lot donated all of the proceeds from every bowl of soup sold at the farm’s on-site restaurant to the Food Bank. In addition to soup sales, Wild Lot hosted a community-driven food drive targeting the collection of non-perishable food items.

Wild Lot founder Ryan Fowler served 311 bowls of homemade soup, and collected 600 pounds of non-perishable goods. “The community has shown significant support for the campaign,” Mr. Fowler said. “Given its success, we plan to repeat and make it larger in 2026.”

Negative Trend

That’s a piece of good news in light of some frightening statistics when it comes to food insecurity in the County.

Since 2020, the number of people served by the United Church Food Bank has more than doubled. The number of children in need has grown from 23 percent to 33 percent, meaning one in three food bank users are children.

These increases mirror provincial trends. According to statistics compiled by Feed Ontario, a network of more than 1,200 food banks and hunger-relief organizations across the province, usage has increased by 134 per cent since 2020. A record-setting one million Ontarians visited a food bank between April 2023 and March 2024.

The Food Bank’s Community Engagement Coordinator, Mark Houghton, said that while usage is up 110 per cent locally over the last four years, donations have also increased.

“We live in a very giving community, so to a large degree the food bank has been able to keep up with the growing costs of fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat,” he said.

Partnerships with local businesses, such as that with Wild Lot, are critical for the ongoing sustainability of the food bank.

“Business leaders invest their time, passion and creativity for a cause, help the food bank come up with a campaign, and then engage with their valued customers. The big payoff in the end is our community is able to feed people in need.”