A tight network of charities has closed the gaps for Red Deerians who might otherwise have gone hungry as others feasted on Thanksgiving turkeys.
Organizers of local groups including Loaves and Fishes and the Red Deer Food Bank believe their collaborative approach ensures that everyone in Red Deer has something to eat every day and that there are special meals on the table during special occasions.
It wasn’t always that way, said Fred Scaife, executive director of the Red Deer Food Bank.
When Scaife first started his job at the food bank, about 13 years ago, there was a wide variety of charities doing a wide variety of programs, including putting hampers together, providing school lunches and running soup kitchens.
There were gaps in services and some people fell through the cracks because of the lack of co-ordination between the various groups and the programs they offered, said Scaife.
Groups including the food bank, soup kitchens, women’s shelter, women’s outreach program and a variety of churches had been stepping on each others’ toes, each approaching the same markets and donors for help with their food programs.
Scaife said one of his first jobs was to get everyone together and work out a plan so that there would be enough to go around.
Dave Bauer, outreach worker at Loaves and Fishes, says people often end up at its soup kitchen when they’ve run out of options. Loaves and Fishes opens in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and keeps coffee and snacks available all day, finishing off with an evening meal including salads and desserts. Other groups, like Barachah Place and Potter’s Hands pick up where Loaves and Fishes leaves off, so at least one group will provide a meal and a warm place to rest on each day of the week.
“We’ve refined everything so that we really don’t overlap each other,” said Bauer.
Dependent entirely on donations, Loaves and Fishes organizers never know what they’re going to serve from one day to the next, but they’ve never had to scrounge for ingredients, said Bauer. At this time of year, there’s plenty of produce coming in from the fields and the food bank has always been able to provide a few supplies.
While everyone is working together to keep people fed, the numbers have jumped this year compared to last, said Scaife.
The Red Deer Food Bank is serving 150 per cent more people than five years ago, but is still “basking in the luxury” of the past recession, which helped to build up stores of food and cash.
Scaife said he is counting on two major food drives that are coming up, one in the north end of the city and another at the south, to help rebuild stores depleted by the unexpected increase. “We just came out of Operation Foodlift, where we raised $10,500 plus a whole passel of food. You know, what helps us helps our clients. We work harder every year and we get a more nutritional and far better quality of product than when I first walked in here 13 years ago.”
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com
— copyright Red Deer Advocate