Perhaps the timing couldn’t have been better. Just as the St. Albert Food Bank has been revving its engines in advance of today’s food drive – its most important one in 32 years – the St. Albert headquarters of Alberta Food Banks has announced a massive donation that it just received from one very notable relief agency.
The Canadian Red Cross made a donation of $2.44 million to help the provincial food bank association, a gift that will funnel down to more than a dozen individual food banks that were each directly impacted by the Wood Buffalo fires, with half of the sum being given straight to the Wood Buffalo Food Bank in Fort McMurray itself.
“At least 26 food banks around the province provided food directly or indirectly to evacuees immediately following the evacuation and during the weeks following the fire. More than half of those submitted requests for funding assistance,” explained Stephanie Rigby, the executive director of Alberta Food Banks.
“By early June, the Canadian Red Cross had reached out to us. They understood from their people on the ground … that many people had been going to food banks and that even some of the evacuation centres that were being supported by the province and other entities that the food banks were giving food to them because they were running out. It was such a unique and unexpected circumstance. People flying to all corners of the province.”
She thanked the Red Cross for recognizing food banks everywhere for providing such an essential service, especially in major crises.
“Food banks have always stepped up to support people in need. It’s what they do.”
For more than a month, Alberta Food Banks co-ordinated dozens of food shipments in partnership with many of its member food banks to make sure that those dealing with critical situations had enough food and supplies to support evacuees.
“Our strong network of food banks was able to quickly mobilize and coordinate deliveries of food to where it was needed the most,” Rigby said. “Food banks across the province came together to support evacuees and each other.”
The Wood Buffalo Food Bank re-opened in mid-June but had to throw out its entire stock of 50,000 kg of food.
“They had to start from zero, literally.”
Since that time, it had to limit hampers to 150 per day because of the increased demand. It returned to normal operations only a week and a half ago. In the last three months, it has provided hampers to more than 2,800 households, feeding 7,144 people in total. It would usually provide hampers to between 900 and 1,000 households serving approximately 1,850 people every two months.
Support was given to food banks in such centres as St. Albert, Lac La Biche and Athabasca but specific amounts for each one were not available.
