The shelves were bare at Canberra's largest emergency food charity and staff were worried.
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Last week, a perfect storm of dwindling donations and soaring demand left the pantry at St John's Care in Reid down to just a few tins of baked beans, chicken noodles and tea.
Even Sue Jordan, who has run the pantry for more than 15 years, weathering its ups and downs, was concerned.
In one year, the number of people using the free service had jumped by about 25 per cent.
Executive officer at St John's Care Sarah Murdoch said she had "never seen Sue's face look like that".
"We didn't know how we'd get by," Ms Murdoch said.
News of the charity's dilemna quickly spread around town. On Monday, Ms Murdoch said they had been "inundated" with donations in just a few days, filling their shelves to bursting as deliveries rolled in.
"It's been an amazing response, I've never seen anything like it. The food just keeps coming and we've had cash donations too.
"This influx will see us into next financial year for sure."
While the charity had been forced to cut back vouchers for electricity from $50 to $25, Ms Murdoch said they could now safely look at reinstating the previous figure.
She put the recent dip in donations down to the rising cost of living.
On Monday, the latest ACT Council of Social Services report found almost 35,000 Canberrans are now living below the poverty line, 8897 of whom are children.
"It's very concerning, more people are struggling," Ms Murdoch said. "We're seeing more people with kids, more working families."
A lot of those who made regular donations had previously used the service themselves, she said.
"We had one woman come in just recently who'd been in a car crash, and then lost her job and come to us, saddled with medical expenses, but when she got her compo claim, she came back.
"Her eyes welled up [as she made the donation] and so did ours."
According to Foodbank, the need for meals in the ACT has steadily grown, jumping 62 per cent in the past four years.
"In the last 12 months, Foodbank distributed 431,357kgs of food to the ACT alone, which works out to be 780,066 meals," a spokeswoman said.
"Demand is overwhelming supply: 389,486 extra meals are needed per year to meet the growing demand in the ACT."
