Merry Maids is helping Victoria’s hungry one jar of peanut butter at a time.
On July 30, the local cleaning company delivered 5,650 jars of peanut butter to the Mustard Seed food bank on Queens Avenue.
The goal: to help keep hungry kids fed.
“Often in the summer, when the [school lunch programs] run out, a lot of these low-income families are struggling to get enough food and specifically protein in the diet,” said Merry Maids advisor Dylan Tanner. “It’s a great addition to help the community.”
Since it was founded in 2014, the company's aptly named Project Peanut Butter has raked in over 11,000 jars and tens of thousands of dollars for the Mustard Seed – a move the non-profit’s director of development Claudia Rezende called “very valuable.”
“Since last year, the need for the food bank has increased by 24 per cent, and one in every five clients of the food bank are children,” she said. “Especially now with the summer break and kids being out of school and being out of meal programs, the need for peanut butter and all the supplies for the food bank is super high.”
Demand for the Mustard Seed's free grub hasn’t just jumped in 2024 – it's risen by a whopping 119 per cent over the past five years, according to Rezende.
“It is the highest we have ever seen in Canada,” she added. “It’s only going up, unfortunately.”
Dylan explained that today’s cost of living, on top of inflation, has made food tough to afford for many Victorians.
“It used to always be considered that food banks were for low-income families and people below the poverty line,” he said. “Now you're seeing a huge increase in working-class families, middle class.”
For Dylan and his father Scott, who owns Merry Maids, keeping Project Peanut Butter alive year after year isn’t just about helping those in need – it also honours the drive's founder Matt Tanner, who died from a stroke in 2021.
“Matt really wanted to help families in need,” said Dylan.
Over the years, dozens more have been involved in helping Merry Maids fulfill its nutty goals, including a slew of local businesses and its hard-working employees, who help collect jars from the public.
“The plan is to keep it going for a long time,” said Scott. “It’s just an easy way to play. You don’t have to come up with hundreds of dollars – just give a couple of jars of peanut butter.”
Click here to support this initiative or call the Mustard Seed at 250-953-1575 to donate over the phone.
