There is an ever-growing need for the Battlefords District Food and Resource Centre, based on its 2017-18 fiscal year numbers presented Tuesday at an annual general meeting.
While guest speaker Deborah Hamp, representing Food Banks Saskatchewan, said they hoped to “look at working ourselves out of a job,” the reality is the need for food banks is still there, both in the Battlefords and around Saskatchewan.
According to the report presented by Executive Director Erin Katerynych to the audience at Western Development Museum, during the fiscal year 2017-18 the food bank gave out an average of 645 hampers per month, an increase from 624 per month a year earlier. They served an average of 1,998 people a month, which is also up from 1,944 per month a year earlier. Just under half those clients are children 17 and under.
This is the highest number of people accessing the food bank in its history.
Volunteers donated 3,600 volunteer hours to the food bank and their special events.
The value of food raised and donated and given out by the food bank was $652,645. This includes $48,875 to other agencies and $47,542.50 to their Food for Kids program.
The food bank continues to be active with its various programs including the Empty Stocking Fund, their programs for children — Coats for Kids, Milk for Kids and Food for Kids — and their After the Bell program where bags of food are distributed to children who use the supervised parks program.
There have been some staff changes recently. The food bank has added Heather O’Neill as manager, and she has been in that position for three months.
Expanded Role
The organization is also looking at expanding their efforts. One piece of news from the meeting is word that the food bank is interested in taking on a major responsibility in helping send food to northern communities.
Board chair Al Huckabay said the Battlefords District Food and Resource Centre could serve as a “hub” to the food banks of Meadow Lake, Turtleford and La Loche.
They have been approached by the Saskatoon food bank to take this on, and it would mean they would take on a distribution centre role, where food from the Saskatoon food bank and from the Food Banks Canada network would go to North Battleford and then to destinations in the north.
“We are pressing forward with this to make this request a reality,” said Huckabay.
The plan is to open the basement area at their 101st Street location to store additional food. To make that happen, they have applied for a grant to pay for a freight elevator that would be needed to access the basement.
Huckabay was optimistic the funding will come through and that they would ultimately become a regional distribution centre.
