AMHERST - Peanut butter continues to be a popular item at the Amherst food bank.

With demand continuing to grow at the King Street facility, Rev. Charlotte Ross said there are a few items the food bank needs more than others including peanut butter.

"You can never have enough peanut butter, it's very popular among the clients," Ross said Friday.

With a number of food collection programs coming up, including the Tim Hortons food drive as well as one at the Amherst Superstore, there are a number of items the food bank really needs including sandwich meat, pasta sauce, rice, macaroni and spaghetti and juice.

Ross said the community has been extremely generous and supportive of the food bank and has continued to support a number of food drives in the community, including the recent Y's Men's food drive.

There are several more food drives planned before Christmas. The Amherst Daily News and CKDH are joining forces to hold a food drive during the town's Christmas parade. Employees from both the newspaper and the radio station will be travelling along the parade route collecting non-perishable food items.

"There are so many people out there who depend on the food bank to help make ends meet," she said. "There are people out there with two, three or four jobs who still need us to help with a week of groceries. We continue to see a lot of new families."

Ross said the demand for food bank services increased earlier this year with the recession and the situation has not improved any since then. From 10 per cent earlier in the year, the centre's clientele increased by 15 per cent over the summer and is still 10 per cent higher than last year.

It's a situation she thinks is only going to get worse as the thermometer plummets and the need to turn the heat up increases.

"The weather has been pretty good so far this fall. There have been a few cool nights, but for the most part it has been pretty mild," she said. "A lot of people are going to face some tough decisions when it's time to turn up the heat in their apartments."

dcole@amherstdaily.com