Both the Interfaith Food Bank & Lethbridge Food Bank will benefit from AMA's Fill Our Fleet campaign (Photos: Lethbridge News Now)

By Justin Goulet

Historic year for AMA’s Fill Our Fleet food bank donation campaign

Dec 21, 2020 | 11:42 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The Alberta Motor Association’s (AMA) Fill Our Fleet campaign nearly doubled its record for food bank donations this season.

On Monday, the AMA revealed the combined results of the campaign this season.

$207,459 in monetary donations came in for food banks across Alberta, along with 23,658 pounds of non-perishables. That’s the most the campaign has raised in its nine-year history.

Last month, the AMA challenged people to share their “quarantine stockpiles” in support of the almost 90,000 Albertans who rely on food banks each month.

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The #StackToSackHunger social media challenge asked Albertans to build towers out of their non-perishables, then donate the stacks (or an equivalent monetary gift) to the Fill Our Fleet.

Participants were also invited to share a photo of their tower on social media using #StackToSackHunger.

Vice-president of brand and members experience, Jane Flower, told LNN that when the AMA set out to kick-off the campaign four weeks ago, they had a year-long target of raising $100,000, which is what was collected as part of last year’s Fill Our Fleet campaign.

The goal was also set to collect 29,000 pounds of food items, which was donated throughout all of last year.

“We pretty much had to reimagine every piece of the holiday portion of the campaign and on top of that, we hadn’t been able to run the events that we normally run during the year as part of the fundraising initiative,” Flower told Lethbridge News Now.

“The depths of generosity of Albertans in one of the most challenging years many folks have ever had…. It makes my hair stand on end just thinking about it.”

She said the 23,658 pounds of food donations was a little short of the 29,000 pound-goal.

However, considering that was their target for an entire year’s worth of donations, Flower is very happy with what was give in just four weeks.

“It just speaks to the care that Albertans have for others in general, but particularly when the chips are down. The community comes together, people do what they can, [and] they dig deep into their hearts and deep into their wallets to help boost their communities so that people don’t have to suffer during this holiday season.”

Flower said both the Lethbridge Food Bank and Interfaith Food Bank will benefit from donations, but final figures to both of those organizations won’t be available until the new year.

The AMA will continue to donate $10 from every membership sale to the campaign through December 31. Online donations from Albertans are accepted year-round and can be made here.