DIDSBURY - Essentials for our Community certainly lives up to its name. The non-profit organization provides valuable help to families and individuals in the area who are in need.
Ryan Warwick is one of the clients of the program and he said Essentials was a big help for him when he moved to town from Edmonton earlier this year.
"When I first got into Didsbury, the program helped me out by giving me a place to go, someone to talk to," said Warwick. "They helped introduce me to local people. It helped provide Christmas dinner for six of us."
Warwick, who now sits on the Essentials board, said that the program has allowed him to make some great contacts in the town.
"The program has been great for introducing me to people in the community for community work and charity work," he said. "It's been a wonderful thing to have in my life. They've been an incredible help. This program is helping feed local residents. There are a lot of people here that are struggling to pay bills, make rent, buy food. This program helps with everything from hooking people up to different sources for jobs. It helps with getting people food, as well as rides to doctor's appointments. It's a wonderful program for a whole bunch of residents of Didsbury."
Warwick said that he likes that the program encourages him and other people to do charity work in exchange for extra food cards.
"There's a lot of opportunity in there," he said. "It's helping in a lot more ways than just providing food. Although providing food is one of the base necessities of life and it sucks not to have it."
Essentials president Sheree Andrews said the program has given out over $16,000 in help over the last 12 months to local residents.
"All of our cards and assistance that we provide to people are from local resources," said Andrews. "We buy from the local grocery store, the local drugstore. We bring everything from local. We ask for local contributions and we help local families. We really want that community tying together to be the main focus of what we're doing."
Andrews said their clients aren't just those who have been affected by the downturn of the economy.
"We have a lot of seniors that just can't live on the pension they're getting," she said. "We have people with disabilities, long-term disabilities, and it's not enough. With rent for a basement suite being $8-900 a month when they're only getting $1,000, where do they eat? It's really hard."
Andrews said the program is able to give people volunteer opportunities in order to earn more food cards.
"Some people can't hold down a full-time job but they can handle a volunteer gig once or twice a week," she said. "So when they do that they build up hours and those hours go towards extra food cards. We're working in partnership with some of the local groups."
Andrews said the program is looking for more local groups to partner with since they have more people wanting to volunteer than places to put them.
