The head of the UHC-Hub of Opportunities is expecting to see the final number of people who relied on a local food bank this year to be higher than last year.
Staff and volunteers helped distribute 400 holiday food hampers Thursday to a long line of preregistered food bank clients at the UHC's food bank at 6955 Cantelon Drive, off Lauzon Parkway in Windsor.
The hampers include a turkey or chicken, potatoes, carrots, onions, salad, stuffing, and more to ensure everyone will have a meal this holiday season.
June Muir, who is also president of the Windsor-Essex Food Bank Association, says last year they had over 235,000 visits to the Windsor-Essex Food Bank Association, an 11 per cent increase over 2023, and they know they are going to have an increase over 2025 once the final numbers are compiled.
She says there are a lot of myths and misconceptions around who utilizes a food bank today.
"It's your neighbour, it's your friends, it's your coworkers. The Hunger Report just came out from Feed Ontario; one in four are working today," says Muir. "It is a change; we have a lot of seniors and a lot of people on fixed incomes. A lot of people are relying on food banks; we were a necessity, but now we've become a reality."
Feed Ontario's most recent Hunger Report found that more than one million people used a food bank in Ontario between April 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025-an 87 per cent increase since 2019-2020-for a total of 8.7 million visits. One in four food bank visitors had a job, the report noted.
"People are donating less when they go to the grocery store. They're finding that their food bills are higher, so maybe they're donating less, so we're definitely seeing that," she says. "We really need to look at food insecurity, and we need to look at that people are paying high rent costs and high utility costs, and what is truly left over for food is not too much."
Muir says they hope people look beyond the holidays.
"Hunger doesn't take a break, right? It's Christmas time, but hunger doesn't take a break, and people are definitely in need. We can't stress that enough-how food banks have been hit over the past couple of years and that we are seeing the increase," she says.
Plains Midstream Canada donated $3,000 to help buy turkeys and other items for this year's holiday hamper.
Windsor West Conservative MP Harbinder Gill, Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore Conservative MP Kathy Borrelli, and Windsor West New Democrat MPP Lisa Gretzky all took part in helping hand out the holiday hampers to those in need.