{"id":21194,"date":"2018-07-20T12:37:21","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T16:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21194"},"modified":"2018-07-20T12:37:21","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T16:37:21","slug":"food-insecurity-doesnt-take-a-summer-vacation-food-pantry-in-need-of-seasonal-staples-toiletries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/food-insecurity-doesnt-take-a-summer-vacation-food-pantry-in-need-of-seasonal-staples-toiletries\/","title":{"rendered":"Food insecurity doesn\u2019t take a summer vacation: Food Pantry in need of seasonal staples, toiletries"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the past year, members of the Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill Constituency Youth Council have been hard at work keeping their fingers on the pulse of the community and getting a handle on issues just below the surface.
\nLast week, they put these lessons into action, delivering bumper crops of toiletries to the Aurora Food Pantry.
\nThe Constituency Youth Council of MP Leona Alleslev dropped off two tubs of toiletries to the Pantry\u2019s Industrial Parkway South facility. It might have looked like a lot, but the Pantry\u2019s Sandra Seepaul says these addressed acute concerns and were quickly allocated to local families in need.
\n\u201cWe try to offer a little bit of everything that people generally spend money on regularly in their lives,\u201d says Ms. Seepaul. \u201cWhile food is one of those things that we\u2019re trying to supplement, things like toilet paper, and things like toothbrushes, toothpaste and shampoo are things we use in our lives daily. We let people know that these are the types of things we\u2019re asking for because everyone is aware we use them, but I don\u2019t think people necessarily think about it.
\n\u201cThese [two tubs] go very quickly and they aren\u2019t really a whole lot when you consider how many clients we have; we serve over 200 families and each family only gets one item, pretty much, when they come in.\u201d
\nPeople generally think food banks such as the Aurora Food Pantry are busiest during the holiday seasons. While that\u2019s certainly not untrue, summer brings its own unique needs and challenges to the Pantry.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re running low on things like juice boxes and those are important because now kids are at home and they will generally eat more food,\u201d she says. \u201cIf they were accessing any kind of school program, they are no longer [using] a lunch or breakfast program and we\u2019re trying to supplement those families and children. Things like juice boxes are great, along with snack foods without peanuts, because if they are going to day camps, they\u2019re going to need snacks without peanuts.\u201d
\nIn addition to this, the Aurora Food Pantry is also in need of canned meats \u2013 salmon, for example \u2013 along with canned soups and \u201csturdy\u201d vegetables and fruit like carrots, potatoes, apples and oranges.
\n\u201cPeople\u2019s needs don\u2019t go away,\u201d says Ms. Seepaul. \u201cJust because other people have the ability to go away on vacations and go to cottages, people who are living with food insecurity don\u2019t have those options a lot of the time and that need never really goes away.\u201d
\nIn addition to the Aurora Food Pantry, the local Constituency Youth Council also made donations to Aurora\u2019s Welcoming Arms and Richmond Hill\u2019s Light on the Hill Church.
\nFor more on the Aurora Food Pantry, including how to become involved or donate, visit www.aurorafoodpantry.ca, email info@aurorafoodpantry.ca, or call 905-841-1577.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past year, members of the Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill Constituency Youth Council have been hard at work keeping their fingers on the pulse of the community and getting a handle on issues just below the surface. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/2018-07-19-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5vQ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 05:10:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}