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By Curtis Galbraith
Community

Almost 1 in 5 people in Grande Prairie used food bank in 2021

Oct 18, 2022 | 6:00 AM

The Salvation Army says 19 per cent of the people in Grande Prairie accessed the food bank in 2021.

A delegation from the Salvation Army spoke to Grande Prairie city council at its meeting on Monday.

Captain Peter Kim says 44 per cent of those people were under the age of 18 and, “we are looking at a crisis here.”

“Food prices have gone up, inflation, gas, and people are struggling to get by,” he says.

“We are seeing an increase also in seniors; a three per cent increase. On average, we service about four per cent, and now that has climbed up to seven per cent.”

Kim says there was an average of 220 seniors accessing the food bank in a year, but that number has climbed to more than 750. Donations have also declined.

The delegation went to council to ask for $200,000 to cover the food that did not come in during this year’s food bank drive.

Council referred the request to 2023 budget talks.

Kim says this was to cover what did not come in during the recent Rotary Food Bank Drive.

“Which (has) been supporting us for over 20 years, and we’ve been able to raise, on average, 45 tonnes of food. The past two years, during COVID, we had to go virtual, and we didn’t bring in as much, obviously, without a door-to-door campaign.”

Kim says the drive collected 30 tons of food this year in its return to a door-to-door campaign.

He adds besides the food bank, they also partner with the community kitchen at the Grande Prairie Friendship Centre. They have gone from providing, on average, 35,000 meals per year to more than 45,000 last year and has already reached 58,000 this year. He predicts it could reach over 80,000.

Kim says the best way to help is by donating money.

“Monetary donations are the best because we are able to then utilize that for gift cards, for example. We’d be able to hand out gift cards as opposed to hampers because we just don’t have enough food in our warehouse to meet the demand.”

Donations can be made online through the Grande Prairie Salvation Army’s website or the web site for the Rotary Food Drive.

by Curtis Galbraith