'Tis certainly the season of giving, giving gifts to loved ones and to a plethora of food drives, toy drives and book drives for those who might not otherwise receive them.
Canned food and cash donations to the food bank peak in December - the Richmond Food Bank, serving 550 households per week, receives half of its annual donations in the month of December, according to the bank.
But the conflation of food as a basic necessity with the idea of giving makes it difficult for families to get consistent access to nutritious food and avoids finding solutions for real problems in income discrepancies.
"When you focus food around the mindset of giving and not social justice, things begin to dry up during other parts of the year," said local activist De Whalen.
About 80 low-income people gathered at CBC in Vancouver on its annual Food Bank Day in protest on Dec. 7.
The protest was organized by Raise the Rates, a group fighting to raise welfare rates in B.C.
While food banks provide a short-term solution, raising welfare rates - currently at $610 a month - and the minimum wage offers a long-term alternative.
In Richmond, many food bank users are two-parent families with two incomes. That means the province's idealistic solution to create more jobs isn't enough, Whalen said.
"Food banks were implemented 30 years ago as a stop gap and now they've become institutions where working people need to use them," said Whalen. "It's nice that people remember to give during this time of year, but we need something more."
And the City of Richmond doesn't need to wait for the province to act either, she said.
Whalen looks to community gardens, where people could access nutritious food and feel more empowered while doing so.
"It's not nice having to stand in line with your kids for hours to pick up a bag of food and be dependant on the giving of others," said Whalen. "These are people who do this because they really have to and it's not any way to treat people."
The Living Wage for Families Campaign has been working on Metro Vancouver municipalities to establish an appropriate wage for all full-time and part-time employees working for the city. The hope is to make the city a "model employer" to which other employers will follow.
"We need to start with bigger employers like YVR. It's good for them too because the money stays here and then it's good for the community," said Whalen.
Recently the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition put out a press release in response to a Canadian Business's released Rich 100: The Richest Canadians in 2012. The Coalition's release asks, "What does the other side of the 'Rich 100' look like?"
It features Anna Wong, a room attendant at the Sheraton Vancouver Airport in Richmond. The hotel is owned by the Lalji family, who are in 24th place on the Rich 100 list.
"While the Laljis are now worth $2.25 billion, an increase of 9.7 per cent over last year, Anna makes just $16 an hour after working almost 20 years at the hotel. Despite seeing room rates at the hotel more than double in her time there, Anna's wage has barely increased," notes the release.
It is that kind of disparity that needs to be addressed, said Whalen.
