It was another successful drive for the Farm Credit Canada’s (FCC) Drive Away Hunger for the Humboldt and District Food Bank.
This was another year with stellar support as Muenster School also joined the campaign to collect donations along side Humboldt Public School, St. Dominic School, St. Augustine School, Behiel, Will and Biemans and Hergott, Seidel and Associates.
Members of the Humboldt FCC office took time on Oct. 12 to visit schools in Humboldt to pick up their numerous donations.
In total, the Humboldt FCC branch raised 13,895 meals for the Humboldt food bank with Wadena, Wynyard, and Watrous receiving donations, which totalled 1,600 meals. The Drive Away Hunger Campaign equates one pound of food to one meal and a dollar donation to three meals.
Across Canada, “food banks help 860,000 Canadian’s each month and 36% of those people are children,” notes FCC in their campaign literature.
In Saskatchewan, food bank usage has risen 17 per cent since 2015 with 31,000 people visiting the food bank per month, 45 per cent of those being children.
Amy Shepherd with the Humboldt and District Food Bank visited the school with FCC members and talked about the needs of the Humboldt and District Food Bank.
The 2016 campaign was such a success that the food bank still had a shelf of donations left over, Shepherd told the students.
The food bank was also able to cut their grocery bill by a quarter throughout the year thanks to last year’s campaign.
“Since we only run on donations, this fundraiser is a big deal to us. We’re really appreciative of this.”
There was a time two years ago when the food bank was considering cutting back on hampers to make sure everyone was getting something from the food bank.
“We had to reassess what we were giving out in our hampers and we had to pull a few items because we were running out of funds and running out of groceries.”
The community has really stepped up, says Shepherd and they have been able to keep the hampers at capacity for everyone who comes in.
“We feel like we’re supplying a good hamper to the people of Humboldt.”
The Humboldt food bank covers Humboldt as well as the surrounding area with clients coming from half way between the next food banks, including Melfort, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Wynyard, Wadena, and Lanigan.
Shepherd says they can see anywhere from 75 to 85 families visiting the food bank each month.
Almost half of those visiting are children but that number is creeping up to over take the number of adults.
Adrianna Wormworth, Relationship Manager with Farm Credit Canada Humboldt says MNP was another big contributor to the drive as well as a national partnership from the CO-OP, including Todd Marcotte and his wonderful staff at the Humboldt CO-OP food store.
Grain Bags Humboldt also contributed to the FCC tractor tour with a tractor and trailer being provided to haul the donations.
Humboldt was one of 10 locations to be chosen for a tour stop.
