A $10,500 cash donation and cereal-focused food drive will be used to help Lethbridge Food Bank customers dealing with food insecurity.
Lethbridge Food Bank Program Lead Denille Tizzard gave a tour of the facility highlighting how important donations and volunteers are to the organization because they could not operate without them. The number of people using the food bank continues to go up. In September the Lethbridge food bank gave out 871 hampers, 273 more than the previous year. Along with the hamper program, they also run the Mindful Munchies program in schools to provide students with a lunch and the No Fixed Address program which helps support Lethbridge’s vulnerable population, in September that program was used 1,320 times.
Donations like the check Sponsor Energy presented Wednesday will be used to help continue and supplement these programs with items that are not donated.
CEO of Sponsor Energy Inc., Carolyn Martin says being able to give back to organizations is the core of the business because they are just “a boring energy company.”
“We sell electricity and natural gas all around Alberta,” Martin says. “The thing that makes our business unique is we are partnered with 50 charitable organizations throughout Alberta, ranging from foodbanks in Lethbridge to Edmonton, Airdrie, Calgary.”
She explains when someone chooses their company to be their energy and natural gas provider there is a $50 donation that is already worked in as part of the price and they get to choose where that money goes. She says in Lethbridge the foodbank continues to receive that support and that is part of why the company continues to come back.
“Hopefully we can keep coming back with bigger and bigger checks each time.”
Along with the check donation, the company also held a cereal food drive on Wednesday and Martin says the “Cereal Killers” campaign was a way to have some fun but also stock the shelves with a needed non-perishable item. However, even though the cereal drive has wrapped up Tizzard says the organization needs items including canned fruits and vegetables, canned soups and meals in a can.
