Food Banks Mississauga’s 2026 Spring Drive raised a record-setting $1 million, but such successful campaigns alone won’t solve the food insecurity crisis that exists in the city, says the head of the charitable agency.

The $1,001,060 raised during the six-week campaign, which concluded on April 30, far surpassed the $800,000 goal and is the most money ever raised by the organization’s annual Spring Drive, which has been running for four decades. One year ago, the 2025 Spring Drive raised $778,055, falling short of FBM’s $1 million goal for that campaign.

While Food Banks Mississauga CEO Meghan Nicholls applauded the community’s effort in hitting the $1 million mark in support of a growing number of families across the city who need help putting food on the table, she noted more is needed beyond those contributions.

“Campaigns like the Spring Drive have only been successful all these years because our community continues to step up to support their neighbours in need. However, with one in four households in Canada experiencing food insecurity, we need more than just community support,” Nicholls said in a news release on Tuesday. “No amount of food is ever going to solve food insecurity, and we need elected officials to commit to improving income adequacy — social assistance rates, living wages and more. Until that happens, we will be here to provide vital food support to our neighbours in need, thanks to the support of our community.”

Food Banks Mississauga recently marked its 40th anniversary and officials said the Spring Drive “has been a staple for the organization, running every year since 1987.”

Food Banks Mississauga says more people than ever before are turning to food banks for help.

Unlike the 1980s, though, when the food bank network served “dozens of families,” it now serves some 49,000 Mississauga residents in need.

“Our founders couldn’t have imagined the scale at which we have had to grow to keep up with the need in our community,” said Nicholls. “Our current facility is over 43 times larger than our first location in 1986, which was only 1,000 square feet. But what our founders did recognize was that food banks are meant to be a temporary, band-aid solution and the only way to help folks on a path out of poverty is through governments investing our taxes into social services that can truly meet community needs.”

At the launch of the 2026 Spring Drive, food bank officials pointed out that twice as many people in Mississauga are using food banks today than during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly five years ago.

And that troubling trend, they say, is reflected across the country, “with Statistics Canada reporting that more Canadians are experiencing food insecurity now than during the pandemic.”

Scotts Canada Ltd. was the returning sponsor of the Spring Drive and once again matched donations dollar-for-dollar, FBM said.

Food Banks Mississauga, which until 2023 operated as The Mississauga Food Bank, oversees 60-plus agencies/food programs within its network across Canada’s seventh-largest city.

During FBM’s 2025 Holiday Drive, which concluded in early January of this year, the organization raised a record-setting $3.2 million, the most money the community has ever contributed to a single campaign.

(All photos: Food Banks Mississauga)


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