Food Bank preparing for increased need as school starts

The need is still there, but the food bank isn’t seeing quite the record numbers that they were this time last year.
“Hopefully people have found jobs by now,” said Mardi Oel, Executive Director of the Chestermere Regional Food Bank.
On average, the food bank delivered 40 hampers per month last year, so far this year the average is 30.
While they aren’t at record levels, Oel said that the need is likely to pick up as school resumes in September.
With the predicted increase in demand starting in September and continuing through the Christmas season Oel is hoping that donations will pick up to match the demand.
This past year Oel said that, “Christmas was a little crazy,” and the demand stayed up from January through June with high demand for food hampers in Chestermere.
Fortunately, the community has been generous with their donations.
Because of the food bank’s ability to buy both in bulk and get the fresh food they need, the food bank always welcomes monetary donations.
“It’s actually better to donate money because we can buy in bulk, therefore it’s cheaper, so we can get more and we can get exactly what we need,” said Oel.
For those preferring to donate actual food items, Oel said that they could also use donations of jams, jellies, cereals, canned tuna and other meats, soup, and snack items for children.
“We very seldom get jam and jelly,” she said.
People can also support the food bank by volunteering there.
“Our volunteers have been fantastic,” said Oel.
They have seen a continues stream of new volunteers coming in, allowing some of the long-time volunteers to take a well-earned break.
Whether it is money, food items or volunteering, the community has always done an amazing job of supporting the food bank.
“Donations are always excellent out here,” she said.
Many community events, such as the Show and Shine, or the upcoming Chestermere Chamber of Commerce golf tournament collect donations for the food bank.
There are also donation bins located in businesses throughout Chestermere.
“And we’re getting more of them all the time,” said Oel of the donation bins.
In addition to an increase in regular food hampers in the fall, once school starts up next week, the Food Bank will again be offering their Snack Attack program to the local schools for kids who come to school without breakfast.
“We offer it to all the schools, last year I think there was only two of the schools that took advantage of that,” said Oel.
Depending on how many schools participate, the snack attack program can place a high demand on the food bank since, to avoid singling out students, the snacks are available to all students in a participating school.
“They just want something on hand for these kids that are hungry,” said Oel.
While food for the snack attack program is available to all the kids in school, families that need to take advantage of the food hampers provided by the Food Bank have to contact the City of Chestermere’s community services.
“Community services does the intake and screens the client and then they will make a referral to us,” said Oel.
The reason that community services is involved in the intake process is so that they can refer families to some of the other social assistance programs available in the city.
“If you’re coming looking for food then you probably need help in other areas,” she said.
For more information on the intake process go to chestermere.ca/330/Food-Resources.