Dennis Chippa admits the spring is always a tough time when it comes to the finances for their not-for-profit.
Chippa, who is the executive director of The Gathering Place Soup Kitchen in North Bay say this year may be their biggest financial struggle.
"This is an annual challenge," admitted Chippa.
"It has never been this early in the year and that is our first fear."
Chippa says it is so bad that he is fearful The Gathering Place will become much like its clientele.
"We are now similar as an agency to what our clients are," admitted Chippa.
"We are literally a couple of pay cheques away from being destitute."
Chippa says the struggle began early in 2024 when the organization felt a significant drop in donations during the holiday season.
"Every year we struggle, there is not a donation-based not-for-profit that doesn't struggle at a certain point in time in the year, usually it is during the summer," he said.
"To have us struggling like we are now barely above water and it only being early April is a concern for us.
"Doing what we do, feeding people, food costs go up, hydro goes up, water goes up. The day-to-day operations increase and those are things that are hard to offset. Food we can offset through our food rescue program so we are okay with food but the rest of the stuff we cannot. Everything has gone up."
On top of the financial challenges, Chippa says the demand for their services is way up.
"We are one of the few industries on the planet where we don't necessarily like having an increase in business, and we have had a significant increase in business," he said.
Chippa says as a way to weather the storm they have made some cutbacks.
That includes putting the outreach program on pause.
"We are going to see how much we can do with part-time staff and volunteers," said Chippa.
"It won't look the same as it did before. I don't see us doing a lot of travel. We dd in the past, last summer we were in Sturgeon, last summer we were at Nipissing First Nation. We have been to Mattawa doing food outreach. I don't see us doing that. I think we will be able to do some of the food outreach in some parts of the North Bay community and maybe some of the agencies, but nothing like what we did in the past. However, that will save us some money."
However, there is still hope.
"We know there is money coming in May, we get our annual stipend from the District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board in May," said Chippa.
"In the past though, we were in better shape when that money came in.
"That's the difference."
