Marzena Gersho and School Breakfast

Food Banks Canada: The summer months are often most difficult for struggling families because children no longer have access to free or low-cost school breakfast, lunch and snack programs, says Food Banks Canada spokeswoman Marzena Gersho, according to The Toronto Star. When the warm weather comes, people think about getting outside in the sun and going on holidays, she says. And yet, more than 900,000 Canadians — about 340,000 of them children — continue to rely on food banks to get by, according to Food Banks Canada, a national organization representing 550 food banks across the country, serving 85 per cent of the people who use them. The issue of hunger falls off the radar and the level of donations drop. To raise awareness — and give food banks a head start heading into the lean summer months — the organization is launching its second Every Plate Full campaign May 1. Although the organization doesn’t keep statistics, anecdotally Gersho knows food banks scramble to keep up with demand over the summer. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.