Carol Baldwin
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Wakaw Recorder
The We Scare Hunger (WSH) campaign is an initiative designed to empower youth by raising awareness of food insecurity within their communities and encouraging local residents to support food banks through donations.
On Oct. 22, students from Wakaw School participated alongside individuals across North America and the United Kingdom in this effort by canvassing their town to collect non-perishable food items for the local food bank.
The students engaged in door-to-door outreach, collecting a variety of non-perishable food items, including canned soups, fruits, vegetables, boxed cereals, pasta, and rice. Contributions that are non-expired and non-perishable are highly valued by both the school and the food bank.
The We Scare Hunger initiative originated as a Halloween food drive aimed at assisting food banks in replenishing their supplies to combat hunger, which has been described as the “worst supervillain” in a 2012 information poster. The poster also states, “Hunger is a daily reality for millions of people, even in your own backyard. This Halloween, take action. Be a hero and help hunger disappear.”
Food insecurity is a persistent issue in Canada, and its magnitude continues to grow. The population of Canada reached an estimated 41,288,599 on July 1, 2024. Among those nearly 41.3 million people, about 10 million Canadians reported living in food-insecure households, including 2.5 million children.
The number of people living in food-insecure households in the ten provinces rose from 6.98 million in 2019 to 9.958 million in 2024, while the number facing severe food insecurity, missing meals, reducing food intake, and even going a day or days without food, doubled in the same time period from 1.314 million to 2.629 million. In 2024, the percentage of people living in food-insecure households rose and established new record highs in every province, except Prince Edward Island and Manitoba.
Living in a food-insecure household often coincides with broader material deprivation, impacting basic needs beyond just food. Since the 1980s, charitable food programs have been the primary response to household food insecurity in Canada. However, despite systematic monitoring, there has been no significant decline in the prevalence of food insecurity. Compared to food-secure households, those experiencing food insecurity spend considerably less on essential needs such as housing, clothing, transportation, and personal care.
“In a country such as Canada, we shouldn’t need to do this,” states John Morelli, an educator who runs the WSH campaign at Hamilton’s St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School, a school with over 20 years of experience coordinating the annual food drive.
In our increasingly interconnected world, the phrase “Act Locally, Think Globally” serves as a powerful reminder that individual actions can create ripples affecting the global community. Local communities are the foundation of global society, and actions at the local level foster a sense of ownership and empowerment, encouraging individuals to take pride in their contributions. By coming together as a community to collect food for the local food bank, students and their neighbours can work towards a world where no one goes hungry.
Donations can be dropped off at the school from today until Friday, October 31st. The students thank everyone for their support.
