Community pantry to receive $11,000 per year from township
MOUNT FOREST – A financial weight will be lifted from the Mount Forest Community Pantry (MFCP) with a $10,000 annual rent supplement.
That’s on top of the $1,000 per year the township provides to the food bank through its Community Grants and Donations Fund.
In 2025, the MFCP provided free food to 2,784 people, including over 1,000 children.
Wellington North is also home to the Arthur Food Bank, which operates out of the David M. Kozinets Centre. The township owns the building and provides space to the food bank for free. According to a township staff report, the rental value of the space is $10,455.
The Arthur Food Bank serves about 200 individuals a year.
The MFCP rents space in downtown Mount Forest (at 248 Main St. S) for $22,434 (including utilities and insurance), but food bank officials are considering moving to a larger location in July 2027 to better meet increasing community need.
Residents have been asking the township to support the MFCP in the same capacity it supports the Arthur Food Bank.
Councillor Steve McCabe said he’s been pushing for the funding for a while, “and I won’t apologize for being pushy on this, because I think it’s most important, and I’m extremely happy to see this finally go through.
“The money they are going to be saving from not paying rent will go towards those less fortunate in our community, where it should be going right now anyway,” he said.
“I don’t really think it goes far enough,” said councillor Sherry Burke.
She questioned the rental value of the Arthur Food Bank’s space, and said after contacting real estate agents, “I would suggest the estimate here is fairly low.”
She called the $10,000 rent supplement a “Band-Aid solution – we can see that they are paying well above what we are offering for rent, and they assist a lot more folks than the one in Arthur.”
Councillor Penny Renken said, “I don’t believe that the pantry should have to pay rent, or the township pay rent for a building – I would like to see it in a permanent home that belongs to the township.”
To MFCP volunteers, she said, “The amount of people that you serve – you’re wonderful. It’s all volunteer, and it’s an extraordinary amount of people that need help nowadays, and I believe it may only get worse, so I would love to see you have a permanent place in a building where no rent is required.”
