Photo courtesy Salvation Army Grande Prairie and area Facebook page

By Jeff Henson

FOOD BANK

Local Salvation Army appreciative of provincial funding for food banks

Nov 24, 2022 | 1:40 PM

Wednesday’s announcement by the province of $20 million in funding over the next two years for food banks in Alberta is being welcomed by the group that runs Grande Prairie’s food bank.

Captain Peter Kim with the Grande Prairie Salvation Army says usage of the food bank in our city has grown significantly over the past year.

“We usually take care of about four to five per cent of the population in Grande Prairie, but that has shot up to twenty per cent. So that works out to about one in five people that are struggling with food insecurity in our own community.”

“Forty-four percent of those people are children under the age of 18. That works out to about 5,622 children. And there was also a sharp increase in the number of seniors that have been accessing the food bank. We have gone from an average of 225 seniors to 767 seniors just last year.”

The government announced $10 million in direct funds over the next two years and a further $10 million in matching funds over that time.

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Captain Kim is hopeful this will allow them to still meet the high demand they are currently seeing for the local food bank.

“It is a combination right now of both the food bank’s demand and need of food, and the ability for us to be able to meet that demand. It costs more to buy that material because donations are not coming in.”

The local food bank also recently received two hundred thousand dollars from the City of Grande Prairie to help replace expired food that had been donated during the most recent food bank drive this past fall.

No word yet on how much of that provincial funding has been earmarked for Grande Prairie’s food bank.