What's Happening @ FYFB

Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

As expected, the recession is impacting all aspects of FYFB's operations. We're seeing 30 per cent more clients than one year ago and the needs of these people has never been greater in our decade of service:

• They live on $2.56/day after they pay housing costs versus $3.19 one year ago.
• They spend 83% of their income on basic living expenses.
• They rely on our community kitchen - up to 160 of meals are now served each day.
• They rely on our $25 3-day food hampers - we now distribute more than 100 hampers a day, up from 83 at the end of March.

We're grateful for friends like you who are supporting us at this difficult time and we look forward to your continued support as we work to help people in need in our community.

Extreme Food Bank Makeover

Once again FYFB's dedicated volunteers took advantage of the two-week summer closure to make FYFB a more welcoming place for our clients. Much-needed repairs were made and we're the proud owners of a brand new floor - thanks to a generous donation from the Sprott Foundation - something we've needed for a few years now.

The good folks at Franklin Templeton Investments came in and painted FYFB. Rotblott's Discount Warehouse donated paint, brushes and rollers again this year. They have been fantastic over the years!

Thank you to all the volunteers who helped during our shutdown but a very special thank you goes out to the following very dedicated volunteers:

• Margaret Cantwell
• William Shane
• Ken Lem
• Gorman Wu
• Sonny

The summer closure is as much a chance to give a break to many of the dedicated, hard-working volunteers as well as an opportunity to give the facility a good clean-up. Did you know that FYFB's volunteers have provided more than 26 thousand hours of service so far this year?

Click here to check out all the action at the Extreme Food Bank Makeover 2009 photo gallery.

We have a dependable core of volunteers who worked really hard and it all paid off. Clients' reactions were positive when we re-opened. They appreciated the time we took to refresh the entire agency and there were no complaints from clients about the closure.

FYFB Strikes Again

FYFB's fifth annual Bowlathon was yet another striking success with 20 teams raising nearly $11,000 to support our hunger and community programs. Led once again by Devi Arasanayagam, this year's Bowlathon saw the return of many corporate teams including the Community and Legal Aid Services Program at Osgoode Hall Law School, Fabulous Savings, Ernst & Young and Porter Novelli and well as many individual teams including last year's top fundraising team the Alley Cats led by Gillian Owen.

Check out the Strike Out Hunger photo gallery to check out all the action.

FYFB Annual General Meeting

FYFB's Annual General Meeting will take place on October 21 at 797 Dundas Street West.

Upcoming Events

The Queen West Art Crawl is September 18-20, 2009 and FYFB will be there spreading the word about the good work we do in the community. Come by and visit or contact us to volunteer.

We're pleased once again to offer artwork from friends of FYFB for sale to the highest bidder. Artists Jean Arasanayagam, Linda Arthurs, Andrea Clark, Chris Gage and John Vicic and have kindly donated pieces for our show.