The Salvation Army’s annual Christmas Kettle Campaign is in full swing in Grande Prairie.
Grande Prairie Salvation Army Captain Peter Kim was joined by Grande Prairie MLA Nolan Dyck at Prairie Mall on November 14th as he plucked a tune on his 12-string guitar to welcome in the Christmas season.
“It’s amazing to have that support from our MLA Nolan and we’re just really grateful that he can come out and kick us off,” Kim says. “We’re just happy to kick off our Christmas kettle campaign, and we’re just happy to continue to work with all donors, whether it’s government or just the individual in our community that continues to help and support those families and individuals who are struggling with food insecurity.”
Kim maintains the number of residents accessing his food bank has unfortunately continued to grow, reaching as high as one in five, or 20 per cent of Swan City residents reporting they have accessed the food bank within the past year.
“We know that the numbers have changed, the need to continue to grow and escalate, and unfortunately, the need is so great that we are requiring further or greater donations from the community,” he says.
This year’s campaign goal has been set at $650K, and Kim says he is confident that Grande Prairie will show up in the same way, as they do every year.
“That is simply just to meet the needs of our community, and that’s not talking about how many new families and new individuals who are coming,” he says. “In the past four years, we’ve had two to 3,000 new households access the food bank.”
“That means we’re at a point where 20 percent of the population is using our services.”
Kim says the number of people accessing the food bank has climbed to pandemic levels, and as inflation continues to pull people out of financial stability, more residents are forced to access non-profits for items as small as snacks for schoolchildren.
“I was hoping that that trend would go down, unfortunately, it’s spiked back up, or it’s going back to the levels of 2021 [and] this year I’m projecting for 2024 either the same or higher numbers for our services,” he says. “That breaks my heart as well when people can’t afford daycare, they can’t afford to pay rent, and so they have very little left for food, we have a lot of families coming in for snacks for their kids for school.”
Despite the growing need, Kim says the one-in-five statistic can be looked at in a more positive light.
“I kind of look at the stats like this, one in five are struggling, but four in five aren’t, and they are able to give, so those four in five in our community who have a little bit to give, every donation counts and every bit helps,” he says. “Food is a basic human need, you can have food and then start your life, but without food, you have no life.”
“One in five is actually better than most of Canada, Canada’s actually, the food banks, are one in four, so, Grande Prairie is faring a little bit better than the rest of Canada.”
When it comes to who exactly is accessing the food bank on a regular basis, Kim says it’s actually a surprisingly mixed group. On top of the unhoused, lower-income earners, and seniors that Kim says are usually the top demographic, the Captain says more and more middle-income earners are being forced to turn to the food bank.
“What we’re finding is that the mid to low-income earners are now struggling to get by, and they’re shifting down into the low-income bracket because of the cost of everything,” he says. “More often now we’re seeing families who used to give to the Salvation Army are now receiving.”
“I would love to work myself out of a job and see the reverse trend, but we’re grateful that Rotary had its food drive and we were able to bring in 40 tons of food, but even that is not enough to meet the needs so we’re still asking the community to help with our fundraising campaign.”
He adds that as more residents access the foodbank, the need for volunteers has continued to grow as well.
“A two-hour shift, I kind of figure it like this- if you were working a two-hour shift and people donated, say, $100 to $150 or $200, you could have just fed a family by sharing two hours of your time,” he says.
Interested individuals are encouraged to reach out to the Grande Prairie Salvation Army’s Kettle Coordinator at (780)-296-3946.
