While celebrating its move to a new and larger location, the Innisfail and District Food Bank is also happy to report there is less hunger in town.
Carole Sim, coordinator of the food bank, said her agency's year-end statistics, from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013, show the number of users of the local food bank decreased more than 20 per cent from the year before.
“Last year (2012/13) we fed 982 adults and 589 kids. It is important. Our kids need to be fed,” said Sim. “However, the year before (2011/12) we did 1,364 adults and 941 kids. It is nice to see the children's population drop because kids shouldn't be hungry.”
Sim added her statistics, which she is still calculating, showed 48 per cent of her clients who came to the agency from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013 visited just once.
“That is very good because normally we are looking at 65 per cent who come three times or less,” said Sim, who has been with the agency since 2001.
“Most of those people came because they had to pay deposits on rent and phone and lights. There is never any money left for food after you do all that,” said Sim. “It changes when there are more people working and we don't seem to have the transient population that we had a few years ago.
“About four years ago we were doing 30 to 35 hampers a week,” she added. “We did 680 last year; that is about 15 hampers a week. We are down about 200 hampers from the year before.”
Sim said the decease might be a result of a stronger economy with more people working than a few years ago at the height of the recession. She has also noticed a decrease in the transient population.
“We used to get a lot of people here thinking if they lived between Calgary and Edmonton they could get on in the oil business and they would make lots of money. Not so,” said Sim.
Meanwhile, the agency moved on July 17 from its old location at 5007 - 50 St. to a larger one at the 49 Street entrance of the Co-op shopping centre.
The new location has about 2,000 square feet of space, more than 500 square feet more than the old location, which had to be abandoned due to a damaged exterior wall that was caused when a car from the parking lot rammed into it last May.
She said the new location's first clients used the service on July 23.
“We had a wonderful response from the community on moving day. We have a generous community,” said Sim, adding that while there has been a decrease in the demand for the food bank over the past year the community will always have a need for the service. “Who knows what fall will bring. Seasonal workers change. If we get an early snowfall then the seasonal workers are done earlier than normal. It is just like if we get a lot of rain in May, they are getting hired later for road construction.
“When the food bank started in 1985 it was supposed to be a short-term thing but it is not,” added Sim. “We've been around here a long time.”
