Halloween 4 Hunger’s food drive celebrates 25 years

Halloween 4 Hunger’s annual food drive is celebrating a quarter of a century this October with the help of students from a Hamilton Mountain high school.

St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School is collecting non-perishable food items and monetary donations for Neighbour 2 Neighbour, the organization that runs the festive food drive.

Neighbour 2 Neighbour operates a community centre and food bank, and has helped Hamiltonians in need for over 35 years.

More than 800 student volunteers are set to canvas around 25,000 homes on Halloween. Many area residents received flyers about tonight’s food drive.

Halloween 4 Hunger has collected over 1 million pounds of food since 2000.

According to Neighbour 2 Neighbour, it’s one of the biggest and most important food drives of the year, and they count on it to help keep their shelves stocked.

READ MORE: ‘Buckling under the strain’, Food Banks Canada HungerCount report cites alarming numbers

Food bank visits across the country have almost doubled in the past five years.

A report from Food Banks Canada released on Monday highlighted grim numbers, with over 2 million visits to food banks nationally in March.

Last year, the Halloween 4 Hunger initiative focused on monetary donations and raised approximately $42,000.

Students will start collecting food and donations around 5:30 p.m.

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