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12 | 26 | 2013 VOLUME 18 | ISSUE 52
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! ENJOY TIME WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS FROM ALL OF US AT THE OBSERVER
COMMENT PAGE 8
GOOD TRANSIT IDEA TO BE ECLIPSED BY POOR DECISIONS
www.OBSERVERXTRA.com
For want of a decent meal The work of food banks more visible during the holiday season, but the need extends throughout the year ELENA MAYSTRUK It’s easier to tell the affluent from the poor in big cities: some neighbourhoods are better than others and the homeless more visible. Not so in rural areas such as Woolwich and Wellesley townships where most of the surroundings seem quaint and the residents prosperous, but there are those in need just the same. Some 3,049 visits were made toWoolwich Community Services from the start of the 2012-2013 period to October 2013. The Wilmot Family Resource Centre had 2,262 visits from Wellesley and
When Joanne Kraemer and her husband fell on hard times, the WCS was there to help. Today the organization’s responsibilities are growing to encompass more townships’ residents.
WCS volunteer Monique Roes helps with holiday hampers. Wilmot residents in 2012, of which 1,089 were local children who make up nearly half of the population using food hampers in the region. Waterloo Region’s total hunger count for 2013 amounts to 28,213 people. “People in the rural areas try to hide it because they want to fit in. If you are in the big city there’s places where you can go where there’s low-income people or you can go to a soup kitchen and
everybody sort of dresses the same, but in the rural areas people just want to be like everyone else,” said Wilmot Family Resource Centre (WFRC) executive director Trisha Robinson. Roxy Bellamy, a single mother of five from New Hamburg, came back to the WFRC after many years of making it on her own. “When I came back a couple of months ago, I was actually crying because you don’t want to come back, but I had to,” she said. Coming to the WFRC for the first time was agonizing for Marianne Irvine. She wants to raise awareness on how many people are finding it hard to survive on wages prevalent in today’s job market. “I’d never accessed [social services] until this FOOD BANK | 2
[ELENA MAYSTRUK / THE OBSERVER]
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