New director looking to lead Lethbridge Food Bank
By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman For the Lethbridge Herald on June 3, 2021.
The Lethbridge Food Bank has appointed Mac Nichol as their new executive director.His position covers what Nichol calls ‘the big three M,’ management, media and money.
In the Management side, Nichol is happy to lead his team in the right direction.
“Our strong team here need somebody to at least lead them in a certain direction, and that’s where I like to come in. Make sure that we keep in mind what our mission is and making sure that our work is good and that what we’re doing is good,” said Nichol.
When it comes to the media, Nichols focuses on reaching out to different media organizations in town, to make sure that everyone in Lethbridge knows what they do and how they do it.
And for the money side, Nichols focuses on acquiring funds through grants and private donations, that they can then turn into program use and make sure that they make it easier for the individuals who require their services, to be able to get access to food.
“It’s been going great. I have a pretty strong background in food bank, so I got a little bit of a head step as some might be in this position and it’s been great,” added Nichols.
At the moment the Lethbridge Food Bank is working on possible events, once restrictions are lifted. The pandemic has made it hard for them to do fundraising events and that has had a big impact on their services.
But not all has been bad, as Nichol recognizes the support has been wonderful in such trying times.
“It’s been great to see the community support coming in here. We’ve had a lot of community donations coming in and really a lot of support for what we’re doing.”
“We’re really excited and really happy about how much our community has supported us. The fact that we’ve had this continued support is really amazing to see out of our community. Obviously, we have a very caring community and it’s really nice to see that in action,” said Nichol.
In order to accommodate all the donations from the community and to be able to offer better service for the individuals who benefit from it, the food bank is expanding.
“We have taken over the previous autobody shop and have turned it into a larger warehouse space, so we can have the capacity for growing clientele,” said Nichol.
They are also part of a citywide food drive on June 12 called Target Hunger. Most of their other events have either been cancelled or changed due to restrictions.
Since the food bank is an essential service, they have been working to provide food to those who need it throughout the pandemic.
“We have a lot of restrictions in place to make sure that both our staff and clientele are safe,” said Nichol.
Since the restrictions have hurt their fundraising events they teamed up with the Interfaith Food Bank over the fall for ‘Feed Lethbridge’ – an online dinner and auction that helped them with funds raised through the event.
The food bank is also hoping to be able to host their annual golf tournament in August. 2
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