It’s a simple way for members of the community to help those in need.
Every September for the past decade, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has organized a food drive in support of the Okotoks Food Bank, but this year that initiative is taking on even greater meaning as cost-of-living pressures have wreaked havoc on household budgets.
The result has been an unprecedented demand for the local food bank’s services, so much so that it just recorded the busiest August in its history, which is the latest in a string of record-breaking statistics. Last year saw usage skyrocket, up three times from what it was a year before, and it’s only grown in 2023, to the point where its Help Yourself Shelf Program served more clients over the first seven months of this year than it did for the entirety of 2022.
The upshot to this increased demand is that food is going out as fast as it’s coming in, leaving shelves at the food bank as bare as they’ve ever been.
That's where you come in. Church members will be dropping off a bag at every Okotoks home today with a request that they be filled with non-perishable items and left on the doorstep for pick-up this Saturday morning.
The food bank desperately needs your help and church members are making it incredibly easy for you to provide it, so if you’re in a financial position to offer assistance, please do your part. All you’ve got to do is go to the cupboard or the pantry and pull items off the shelves to fill the bag; if you have the means to fill a second bag, please do so.
The food bank is doing all it can to meet the needs of a burgeoning client base, but it won’t be able to do that without community members playing their part. Let’s make this food drive the most successful one yet.
