The results are in from September’s Food Drive and Suzan Krecsy, the director of the St. Albert Food Bank is smiling. The tally puts the intake at more than 25,000 kg, which is approximately 5,500 kg more than last year and very near to the goal of 27,000 kg.
“It’s so close to the goal. It’s very, very close,” she regaled.
Krecsy said that the brown paper bags are still trickling in too, inching that number ever higher by the week. All of that might just be gravy in her mind, however. She said that the little ghouls and goblins of Halloween were all angels in a way, and their harps played to the tune of almost 4,200 kg more.
“You count Halloween in that and we’ve more than got it. These kids with their reverse Halloweens and all the haunted houses and all the schools doing other collections … 9,242 lbs.! They’re awesome!”
The annual fall collection encourages homeowners across the city to put out a paper grocery bag of non-perishable food items to be collected by volunteers. The one-day event is a massive display of charity and goodwill that helps the food bank build up its reserves during a time when donations are otherwise at the low point of the year.
Now, Krecsy is setting her sights toward the holiday season. The next big ticket items are turkeys as they cleaned out their stock of them at Thanksgiving.
“We are down to zero turkeys. We need at least 150 turkeys. Those donations would be very much appreciated. Anything else that goes with Christmas dinner we’d be happy to receive too.”
She is expecting to prepare at least 150 hampers for families to pick up at Christmastime. That’s the approximate number that they offered out in 2012. The hampers are just one of the numerous community services available to struggling families during December.
“After the Kinettes do their program then we do our program.”
The food bank also has its Christmas banquet on Dec. 19 and turkeys – as well as other fixings – are needed for that feast as well.
Call the St. Albert Food Bank and Community Village at 780-459-0599 for other ways to help or to receive help.
The centre can also be found on the Internet at www.stalbertfb.com.
The food bank is located at #30, 50 Bellerose Dr. next to Canadian Tire.
