by Marty Brown
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 19/97) - The Yellowknife Food Bank in the Tundra Building is open one night a week for two hours.

During that time an average of 50 people take advantage of the service, but they take away enough food to feed 250 -- for their own families, friends and neighbors.

Yellowknifer reporter Marty Brown spent last Wednesday evening at the food bank. She helped bag groceries and talked with people who work there and use the service. This is what she saw and heard.

• 6:45 p.m. I join three people waiting outside the door. A student on her first trip to the food bank, an older man and a shy older women. It was cold.

• 7 p.m. The door opens and we all walk up the stairs to the third floor. The student and the man sit on chairs in the hall, waiting for food bank volunteers to get organized. The older woman goes back downstairs.

• 7:02 p.m. A table is set up in the hallway. A food bank volunteer Andrea greets the recipients with a cheerful hello, asks how many people in the family and goes into the storeroom.

  Inside, Andrea, Paula and Paula's six-year old daughter Cassandra, and I pack grocery bags with food. This is how you do it, Cassandra said as she lead me along. She picked up lard, a sack of rolled oats, tea, salt and sugar and put them in bags.

• 7:15 p.m. Business is brisk. Andrea worries that we were going to run out of food. She was reassured by, hesitantly, that they never have before.

• 7:20 p.m. A quick peek out the door told me people coming to the food bank have only one thing in common and it's not race or language. It's being down on luck.

  Some people drop by asking for food for grandparents unable to make the trip. Others waiting for a cheque from home or government find themselves short food for a time.

• 8:30 p.m. Now there's a lull. We grab a coffee. "I guess we're going to make it," Andrea said, looking around.

  The office area is tidied up, more bags are packed. Someone found margarine -- a real bonus -- that is promptly distributed to the latest customers. But, there's always a rush at five to nine apparently, so we prepare.

• 9:00 p.m. The doors close, and my back hurts. The cupboards are nearly bare. Yellowknifers were generous over Christmas with food and money, Paula said. But the cupboards are getting bare.

Hopefully there'll be more next week. Hopefully.