INNISFAIL – For more than 15 years The Lending Cupboard has quietly served thousands of Central Albertan citizens with accessible medical equipment but big changes are already happening and its once soft service pitch, especially for rural residents, is about to become bolder, louder and happier.
“Do you hear the laughter?" noted Dawna Morey, the agency’s executive director, during an interview with the Albertan. “That’s the kind of people I have here, amazing, amazing people I have.”
The Lending Cupboard, a Red Deer-based registered charity that began in 2006, counted 459 clients in its first year of operation. That grew to just under 11,000 client visits in 2020, even with the COVID pandemic impacting access.
“Why is that? We are a victim of our own success to some point,” said Morey, who has been with the agency for seven years. “A lot of it is the best practices that have changed with Alberta Health Services, the pressures from the baby boomers, the demographics, and the economy.
“All those things have helped to really elevate the need for a service like The Lending Cupboard, and that is going to continue,” she added. “It will continue well into 2040, so how do we reach those people in the rural communities?”
The Lending Cupboard is a service that lends medical equipment to anyone in the region for extreme sports injuries, citizens recovering from illness or surgery, and end of life care. That includes children, youth, adults and seniors. There is no charge for borrowing any of the equipment, other than for a nominal delivery fee if that service is required.
Inside the agency’s massive 6,500 sq.-ft headquarters at #1, 7803 – 50th Ave. in Red Deer, staff and the 60 volunteers have an comprehensive inventory; everything from wheelchairs, bed rails, hydraulic lifts, bath chairs, crutches and canes, toilet safety rails and much more.
Over the past several years The Lending Cupboard’s service and growing reputation has been quietly embraced by many rural citizens from as far away as north of Airdrie, and all the way north to near Wetaskiwin, as well as east to Three Hills and west to Rocky Mountain House.
In the more immediate area closer to the City of Red Deer, many residents of Innisfail and nearby communities have come to consider The Lending Cupboard’s service as essential.
During the last year and a half ending on Dec. 20, the agency had 488 client visits from Innisfail. In that same period The Lending Cupboard had 834 from Red Deer County, 368 from Olds, 171 from Sundre, 87 from Didsbury, and six from Cremona.
In recent years, Morey has made several presentations to Innisfail service clubs. She said “great connections” have been created with the Innisfail Health Centre and many of the town’s home care workers.
However, Morey is still determined to build on that success and see the impressive statistics grow even higher.
“However, where I struggle is how do people find out about us if they don’t know about us? How do you know there is a service if you don’t need it, or until you need it?" she said. “So, I say to people in the rural communities, ‘how do you find out about things?”
One way Morey, who used to handle all marketing and promotion duties herself, could ultimately answer that question was by hiring someone qualified to tell and write stories.
Enter Mark Weber, a long-time respected and award-winning Red Deer journalist.
“That is exactly what we want to do. We have really grown over the many years we have been in Red Deer,” said Weber, who recently left the media industry to become The Lending Cupboard’s new marketing and communications coordinator. “Either people don’t know about us at all or really think it is just a Red Deer-focused organization, which is just not true.
"We are here for virtually anybody that needs our services. There is no charge to borrow equipment from us. You literally borrow it. Our name says it all.
“The goal here is that we’re flexible. We’re here to really help people, and we have this enormous inventory that is there just for the borrowing. And its beneficial to so many people, seniors, youth, anyone that has been in an accident. There is such a broad range.”
And this coming January, there will be a new promotions coordinator at the agency working side by side with Weber, who will focus on what he did so well for many years as a journalist.
“He can tell the stories, and collect the stories because it’s really going to be about how we are impacting people in the rural communities,” said Morey.
“We want those rural communities to know we’re here for them, and we want their support as well.”
