The Comox Valley Food Bank has closed its doors, for now.
The important community service announced today that it will no longer be giving out food to its clients because of COVID-19 concerns.
President Mitch Moncrieff says it’s going to revamp its procedures and if it can, reopen as soon as possible.
“The way we were doing things, I didn’t feel that we were at a high enough level that I could 100 per cent say everybody was safe.”
“We want to re-evaluate everything, get down to a skeleton crew that we can really keep track of everybody that is working in the building. Hopefully we will be able to reopen in a way that is safe for our volunteers, staff and clients. If we can figure out a way to do that, we will reopen.”
He added that over the past two days the amount of people coming in for food dropped drastically.
“The really surprising thing was yesterday we were open and serving people outside over double tables and we still had close to 80 people show up. Today by 10:30am, six people showed up.”
“It’s like the clients are shutting it down themselves. Everybody is worried about going out and with the Prime Minister of Canada saying that we should hunker down if we don’t have to go out, we shouldn’t, and it seems like that’s what people are doing and that’s great,” says Moncrieff.
Moncrieff says as soon safety concerns for volunteers, clients and staff have been figured out, the food bank will be open.
For the most up-to-date information on the Comox Valley Food Bank, visit its Facebook page.
