Queenstown Salvation Army community ministries director Andrew Wilson said the Covid lockdown had hit the Lakes district hard, because its economy was largely centred around tourism.
Many who had not lost jobs were trying to get by on severely reduced working hours, and the Queenstown foodbank was being rushed off its feet, trying to keep up with the number of people requiring support.
"Since this time last year, we’ve had up to four times more people come through asking for food packages.
"It doesn’t take much of a reduction in work hours for people to move beyond their means."
Family Works Otago practice manager Jollene Warrington said the organisation’s foodbank in Dunedin had already given out more than 250 food packages since the start of December.
"That’s a little bit more than previous years, but the wave hasn’t hit yet.
"We’re expecting a lot more demand after Christmas when credit card bill payments come due and back-to-school expenses kick in."
Mrs Warrington believed the increased demand was caused by several things — Covid being one of them.
Many people lost jobs or had their hours reduced because of the Covid lockdown, but other causes included increasingly high rents and everyday bills.
"The cost of living is continuing to increase."
Despite the high demand, she said there was still plenty of food in supply.
"The community has been phenomenal. We’re still receiving donations today. It’s amazing."
Salvation Army Dunedin community ministries manager David McKenzie said the Salvation Army’s foodbank had also been extremely busy in the build-up to Christmas this year.
"It’s the result of the year and the economic situation.
"We’re seeing a lot more new people for the first time — people we haven’t seen before."
He too said the community had been generous in keeping the foodbank well stocked.
"That’s the great thing about this year. It’s been a bad one, but what we’ve seen all year is people supporting one another, and we’re very, very grateful for that."
"It enables us to give quite good food parcels to people at Christmas time."
Invercargill Salvation Army community ministry co-ordinator Brenda King said demand in Southland was not as high as she had expected this year.
"It’s been about the same as it was last year. We haven’t noticed a huge spike.
"I’m not sure why. It may be because Southlanders are pretty resilient."
