Absolutely. Those were very beneficial during COVID. We distributed funds out to our network of 112 agencies. Most of them used it either for purchasing of food or for staffing.
We lost a lot of volunteers during COVID, and staffing is critical for us to be able to help people move out of poverty. Food banking has expanded and become much more of a professional industry than it ever was, relying on well-trained, skilled people to help access supports and resources for people.
Unfortunately, those funds were completely spent. There is no money left from what we received.
We are back to serving more people. Unfortunately, the cost of groceries has gone up so high that even we, as an organization, are spending more and are not able to put out as much as we used to.
Before the pandemic, we were spending $1.4 million on food. This year, we'll spend well over $6 million—getting close to $7 million. We were a $15-million organization before the pandemic. We are now a $25-million organization. That is partially because of the cost of everything and the increased number of people who are accessing food banks.