As headlines around the world warn of rising food prices, the Yukon's only food bank is bracing for the double-whammy effect higher grocery bills will have on both clients and donors.

On the one end, executive director Stephen Dunbar-Edge said today, you have people who are currently earning just enough to pay the grocery bills, without anything left over at the end of the month.

"They are the underemployed,” Dunbar-edge told the Star, as the food bank bustled with people coming in to pick up groceries for the week and have a coffee.

"People who are working one or two low-paying jobs and earning just enough to make ends meet.”

For those Yukoners, he said, the two per cent rise in food prices tracked by Stats Can between February 2010 and last month could mean the difference between shopping at Extra Foods and lining up at the food bank.

And then there is the effect on donors.

"It's going to have an impact on people's ability to donate,” Dunbar-Edge said. "We have to factor that in to our strategy.

"... The reality is, our board is facing some pretty big issues already, so food prices just add another layer of complexity.”

He is confident, however, that people will continue to show the generosity the food bank counts on.

"I get a lot of kids who say, ‘I've got enough' and ask for donations in lieu of birthday presents when they have a party,” he said. "And couples who are getting married but are already pretty well set up, asking their guests to make a donation.”

The food bank society's board is still looking for another 100 or so people to fill out the 500 Club, a group of monthly donors who give Dunbar-Edge a guaranteed grocery budget every month.

"I purchase a great deal of the food we distribute,” Dunbar-Edge explained. Some of it comes from local grocery stores and also from other food bank societies in Alberta.

Last year, a donation of 24 pallets of food and household goods from the Calgary food bank turned into both a logistical headache and a financial disappointment.

The Whitehorse organization paid several thousand dollars to transport the goods. Their stomachs sank, however, when they opened two pallets full of freezer packs and several more of nothing but Crisco shortening.

"They didn't understand our needs,” Dunbar-Edge said with a laugh.

In Alberta, he said, it is common for cattle ranchers to donate packages of ground beef, which need to be kept cold, especially for people who do not have full kitchen facilities.

"But we don't have ranchers here, so we don't have much need for something like that.”

In a city like Edmonton, the enormous load of Crisco would be distributed to smaller food banks in the surrounding communities, Dunbar-Edge said, so the Calgary people assumed Whitehorse would be the centre of the same sort of network.

"But we are the only food bank in the territory,” he pointed out. "So they were applying a southern mentality to a northern context.

"... We both understand each other better now and the partnership is working really well.”

The Food Bank Society of Whitehorse is preparing to celebrate its two-year anniversary next month.

Dunbar-Edge said there is a much greater need than organizers expected when they first started canvassing other charitable organizations for information.

They based their first estimates on how many clients were being served by Maryhouse and the Salvation Army, and came up with 250 "clients”, which translated to about 600 people, as several clients are families.

Over the past six months, Dunbar-Edge said, the food bank has served an average of 550 clients a month, or 1,300 people.

"We haven't been able to track that as we'd like to,” when asked why there has been such an increase. "That is something we are working on right now.”

A big part of better serving the community is better understanding its needs and how they change over the course of the year, Dunbar-Edge said.

For instance, families have different food needs in the summer than they do during the school year.

When children are in class, families are looking for snack foods "that are really quite expensive but will give the kids that energy they need to learn.”

In the summer, the need changes to lunch foods – soups and sandwich makings – because the kids aren't getting that meal through their school lunch program, he said.

The seasons affect people in other ways as well, Dunbar-Edge pointed out, with mining camp jobs slowing considerably in the winter, or people coming into Whitehorse from the communities looking for seasonal work.