Saskatoon's food bank is seeing a record number of monthly users and nearly half are kids

The Saskatoon Food Bank and Learning Centre is seeing its highest number of monthly users ever, and many of them are children.

"Our numbers now are about 24,000 people a month and about 41 per cent are kids," said Deborah Hamp, the foodbank's director of operations and engagement.

The Food Bank said that number was reached in March and Hamp said it's the highest number in the organization’s history.

She said before the pandemic they were serving about 19,000 per month.

• Get the CTV News app for Saskatoon area breaking news alerts and top stories 

To help improve the nutrition of children, the Food Bank has partnered with Canpotex to bring fresh produce to families.

“It often feels like in the grocery store that fresh fruit is a luxury for many families and we want to make sure that there's an impact being made on children's nutrition,” Hamp said.

“So with the matching campaign, people are encouraged to go to our website at Saskatoonfoodbank.org and donate online. People can also bring long-lasting fruits to the food bank, so apples, oranges, things like that so that we can hand those out directly in food baskets.”

As an added incentive, she said there was a matching campaign running throughout July.

“Throughout the month of July, Canpotex is matching every dollar up to $50,000 from the public towards our fresh fruit for kids initiative,” Canpotex spokesperson Maeghan Dubois said.