I’m pleased to speak about some important events happening in my riding of Niagara Centre.

This week, Port Cares in Port Colborne is having its annual soup fest to raise funds for their food bank. The number of people who rely on this food bank has skyrocketed to almost 2,700. Port Cares reports that their food bank is helping at least one out of eight local residents in Port Colborne, and 34% of those are children.

For the week of April 17, at the Seaway Mall in Welland, the Hope Centre, Open Arms Mission, Salvation Army and Holy Trinity church are teaming up to hold a week-long food drive.

Municipalities are crying out for help. Just last week, the city of Welland passed a motion calling for the province to do more to address homelessness. They stated: “The homelessness crisis is taking a devastating toll on families and communities, undermining a healthy and prosperous Ontario.” They went on to say that this crisis is the result of the “underinvestment and poor policy choices of successive provincial governments.”

I join them in demanding that this government “acknowledge that homelessness in Ontario is a social, economic, and health crisis” and commit to working with AMO, our municipal partners and not-for-profits like these fantastic organizations I’ve just mentioned, who are working so hard to feed so many individuals and families in my community.

The message is clear. The solutions are there at the grassroots level, but the provincial government must be willing to partner and provide the legislative and financial supports to make them work.