The Calgary Food Bank is gearing up for its biggest event of the year on Saturday morning.
The annual city-wide food drive will see thousands of volunteers collect non-perishable food donations from the doorsteps of more than 400,000 Calgary homes.
This is the event’s 20th year in Calgary and Melissa From, president and CEO of the Calgary Food Bank says, it’s as important as ever.
“In the spring of 2023, we were feeding 400 households a day, folks in our community who just needed that extra support for whatever reason,” she explained. “As it stands today, we will have 750 households.”
In past years, between 400,000 and 500,000 pounds of food has been donated to the drive, which is critical to maintaining operations throughout the holiday season.
From expects Calgarians will continue to do their part this year.
“Through economic downturns, through fire and floods, everything that has happened in our community in 43 years, we are still very much supported by our community,” she said.
This year, the organization was unable to provide plastic bags, so from now on is asking anyone who wants to help leave all donations in their own bags, so they can be easily picked up by volunteers.
Some of the most needed items are canned vegetables, rice, pasta, and baby formula.
From says helping out makes a world of difference, especially since demand for food bank services has nearly doubled in the last year.
“It only takes a couple of minutes to either go into your pantry and look for a couple of canned goods and some non-perishable items, or when you’re doing that grocery store visit, just pick up a couple extra boxes of pasta or tins of canned tomatoes,” she said.
The food bank says volunteers will come to pick up donations by 1 p.m. It adds that only bagged items will be collected, volunteers will not ring doorbells to solicit donations, money or cheques won’t be collected from doorsteps, and reusable bags used to hold donations won’t be returned.
More information on the drive can be found at calgaryfoodbank.com