Red Deer Food Bank receives outpouring of community support after shelves left empty

The Red Deer Food Bank recently took to social media to showcase a dire situation of nearly empty shelves.  

Since then, the food bank has received donations from Red Deer and area residents to help fill food hampers.  

“We wanted to advise the community just how tight it was getting. We recognized that our stocks were getting extremely low and to the point where we needed to raise alarm bells,” said Mitch Thomson, Executive Director of the Red Deer Food Bank.  

Since the growth and demand of services was outweighing donations that were coming in, the food bank asked the community to consider helping.  

“The response has been the shot in the arm that we needed,” he said. “We've been greatly heartened and received a lot of support from individuals that have donated food, funds, and come out to volunteer.”  

While community support has boosted morale around the food bank, more work needs to be done to ensure the shelves are full.   

“One side of the warehouse is empty, and the other side has a surge of food that's arrived, and we're sorting through those goods now,” Thomson said. “Demand is still really high, and we're putting food out into people's hands really quickly.”  

Thomson added that demand for services has been building for years, and the food bank has been unable to bulk up the food supply.  

“We've reduced what we were able to give to clients about six times in the last two years. Growth and need is about 114 per cent over what it was a few years ago,” he said. “We are responding to a lot of pressure and our resources are getting tighter. We hope that pressure is reduced in the coming years and that we're able to do more.”  

Going into the fall, Thomson encourages anyone who is able to donate food items, to donate them at the food bins at local grocery stores, or anyone who is harvesting their gardens and has extra produce to donate it to the food bank.  

“We want to remind people that rice, pasta, and cereal, are faithful items that are the most important to us when times get really tight,” Thomson said.   

Monetary donations can also be made online, to help the food bank purchase food strategically.