At a time when most Christmas trees are down, the St. Albert Food Bank and Community Village just received one extra surprise gift.
Last week, local MP Brent Rathgeber handed over a $2,800 federal grant that will be used to upgrade the food bank's security systems.
"It's awesome!" laughed executive director Suzan Krecsy. "It's absolutely essential that [we] provide a safe work environment. We're very, very grateful for it."
She said she's grateful for the staff at the city's Family & Community Support Services department for becoming aware of the grant and helping her with the application.
The money will be used to purchase a security system and personal safety devices with panic buttons. Incidents are rare but they can and do happen.
"I had to lock down a couple of times," Krecsy explained, relating one particular incident. "I was pretty uncomfortable with the way the client was presenting and had to ask them to leave, and then I locked the doors behind them."
The funding that is left over will be used to purchase much-needed supplies of hygiene products to directly benefit its clients who need to use its shower facilities.
Birthday campaign in the bag
For the last three months, Amanda Magyar has been asking shoppers to think of the children. She placed drop-off bins at various city retailers and those receptacles have paid off for her inaugural Birthday Bags for Kids n Need Campaign, a program to provide party supplies to kids of families struggling to make ends meet.
In the end, more than 300 bags of cake mixes, balloons and other supplies were brought in. Some donations of presents were also given.
Although Magyar doesn't yet have a final tally, she still wants to thank the city and the citizens for showing their support.
"We packaged 141 bags [last Wednesday] but there were still a bunch of donations from the firefighters, and a couple of churches that kept dropping off bags," she said.
She figured that it was so successful that it warrants a sophomore run but she has to check the schedule to determine the best time of year to run the program.
"I am just so happy. I think it's definitely going to be an annual thing."
