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Salvation Army braces for further pressures on food supply after food bank, food rescue shuts down.

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Jason Brinson, executive director with the Salvation Army Yellowknife holds a bin of pasta items in the food room of the Army's Resource Centre. Blair McBride/NNSL photo

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: In order to ease some of the strain on the Salvation Army's food supply service, NNSL Media has launched a fundraising effort. While the newspaper PDFs are free to download on old.nnsl.com, readers can go here to donate to the food supply service of the Salvation Army. Please do it. The people among us who need the most help are getting the least. - Bruce Valpy

It is too early to determine how the closure of two Yellowknife food outreach organizations would affect the food bank services of the Salvation Army in Yellowknife.

"We don't know if more people will come to us or not. It will affect us but in what way or capacity it's premature for us to say," Jason Brinson, executive director of the Salvation Army in Yellowknife told NNSL Media on Thursday.

Both the YK Food Bank and Food Rescue Yellowknife announced earlier this week they were closing down for the foreseeable future because of safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Army is experiencing shortages of food because fewer food items are being donated from stores due to less availability. It sources its food from retail stores, private donors and restaurants, and previously from Food Rescue. But it has modified its operations in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

"For Monday we're going to be starting the appointment system where people can make appointments and call in before they come for their (food) hampers, so we can limit the number of people (here) and maintain social distancing. We won't have 10 people standing in the area (at once)," Brinson said.

The Salvation Army runs a food hamper system, a soup kitchen and it serves meals to residents living in its housing.