The Drayton Valley Food Bank is expecting higher than average numbers over the winter.
Lyndon Muth, the president of the board of volunteers for the Drayton Valley Food Bank, says they’ve seen an increased number of people so far this year.
“In the middle of the pandemic we actually had a reduction in the number of hampers served,” says Muth. He says they attributed this to the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments that many people were receiving.
Now that those payments have stopped, there has been a significant upswing in hampers needed again. “Year to date in 2022, we are up 26.2 percent on people served compared to 2021,” he says.
Another contributing issue is the current cost of living, says Muth. With the cost of groceries, utility costs, and the cost of fuel, some residents are being forced to pick and choose what they spend their money on.
Their annual food drive, which is held on the Thanksgiving weekend every year, only brought in about half the donations as they would normally receive. However, Muth says there have been other food drives, which may have affected the turn out.
“There’s been a lot of community initiated food drives, so maybe people are tapped out with giving,” he says.
He says 80 to 90 percent of the food bank’s donations come in between October and January. This “season of giving” is only half over, so there may still be more donations to come.
Muth says even with the lower number of donations, residents don’t have to be concerned with receiving their hampers. One thing Muth says surprises many people is that the food donations that are received aren’t enough to feed everyone. The Food Bank still has to purchase groceries every month to fill the baskets.
“We have enough money to cover the current needs,” he says.
He says the one thing that can throw a wrench into their plans is new clients who have never used the food bank before.
“This year we are at about 115 year-to-date, and we’ve never before seen that in the more than 20 year history of the Food Bank,” he says. On one of the pick-up days, they had eight new clients.
They’ve also heard stories from clients who’ve talked about always donating to the Food Bank, but never expecting to have to make use of it. “It doesn’t take much,” says Muth, “‘I had a car accident,’ or ‘I just lost my job.’”
Muth says they always give to their clients without judgment. He says some of the stories they hear leave all of the volunteers with tears in their eyes.
Anyone who is in need of the services from the Food Bank can call 780-514-3777 and leave a message between 8 a.m and 6 p.m. on Sundays or Wednesdays. They can then stop by to pick up a basket on the following Monday or Thursday.
