Lethbridge food banks preparing for Target Hunger
By Al Beeber on April 29, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com An initiative to help fill food bank shelves kicks off again in June.Project Hunger, staged by The Lethbridge Food Bank Society and Interfaith Food Bank runs on June 12.
After input from the public, organizers are bringing back the familiar yellow bags which will be dropped at city homes for residents to fill.
This year’s goal is to bring in 50,000 pounds of food and organizers are looking for volunteers to support the project.
Danielle McIntyre of the Interfaith Food Bank said Wednesday the yellow bags are crucial to the food drive’s success. They weren’t used last year in an effort to be more environmentally friendly but between the pandemic and the missing bags which serve as a valuable reminder of the event, the drive only generated 17,000 pounds of food.
“It was disappointing,” said McIntyre, with many volunteers reporting only two or three bags on their routes. Others brought truckloads filled and many of those vehicles were packed with surplus yellow bags that had been handed out.
“The yellow bag is crucial to success,” she added. Those bags list clearly the most wanted foodstuffs the banks need.
Organizers are looking for community groups and volunteers to sign up to deliver bags on routes a week prior to pick-up on June 12.
People can get involved by going to http://www.targethunger.com. At that site, they’ll find out all in the information needed to participate including available routes.
Once volunteers get a route, which McIntyre says can be close to home or a group’s staging place, they deliver the bags and then collect them on June 12.
Bags are dropped off at either food bank, which depends on the route selected. For safety, there is curtside service for volunteers. Both food banks, said McIntyre, have large warehouses where other volunteers will be sorting food at socially-distanced stations.
This year, organizers are reaching out to gated communities, apartment complexes and multi-family units to pick what they call a “champion” to organize yellow bag distribution and pickup.
“We want those community members to participate, too,” said McIntyre. “We can get them bins and facilitate that process.”
Because they are considered an essential service, McIntyre said the food banks are accustomed to dealing with the restrictions of COVID.
Last year was challenging due to COVID and the hoarding that initially happened as pandemic hit.
“People were scared,” said McIntyre.
While the food banks long had a 100,000 lb. goal – which would have amounted to about one can of food per city resident, McIntyre said that goal was never reached so hopes were lowered to 50,000 lbs.
Routes are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter 4
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