Edmonton’s Food Bank struggling with demand

Edmonton’s Food Bank is experiencing fewer donations this year, and with the storm that happened during the Heritage Fest, how do they keep up with the demand?

Normally, this time of year the Edmonton Food Bank would be sorting donations from Heritage Festival, but after a storm forced the event to be canceled, the charity is looking for new ways to serve the increasing demand. 

“Our foundation has been volunteering with Edmonton’s Food Bank for the last couple of years,” said Amber Blaszkiewicz a volunteer with the Realtors Community Foundation

Volunteers like Blaszkiewicz, along with her team, are sorting the donations that came in through this weekend’s Heritage Festival. The charity was expecting boxes to fill up, but that didn’t happen when the event had to cancel their final day due to a storm.

“The storm is really unfortunate, especially for causes like Edmonton’s Food Bank, they rely on those events heavily to be able to fill their boxes to give back to the community on a regular basis. So now more than ever, we wanna be here today to support the Edmonton’s Food Bank,” explained Blazkiewicz.

From fewer donations to an exponential growth in those needing to access the service, Tamisan with Edmonton’s Food Bank told CityNews that even donors are struggling to help.

“There are people struggling right now and more people struggling. As well as we’ve had past donors come in and say that we’d like to donate, but we’re actually needing help ourselves. So that certainly tells us that it’s struggling times for many people,” said Tamisan Bencz-Knight, manager of strategic relationships & partnerships with Edmonton’s Food Bank.

Affordability is also a factor as food prices have gone up in recent years.

“When people get tight and the economy gets bad, it does affect charities, not just Edmonton’s Food Bank but other charities out there – and Edmonton’s Food Bank has never said that we can solve food insecurity nor poverty. What we’re here is to make sure we can try to bridge that gap,” said Bencz-Knight.

Because of the recent loss of potential donations at the Heritage Festival, the foodbank is asking Edmontonians to consider donating through their website.