Interfaith Food Bank celebrates 30-year anniversary

On Tuesday, they celebrated their 30^th anniversary with a community open house.

The event began with speeches from Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman, Lethbridge County Reeve Lorne Hickey, Lethbridge-East MLA Nathan Neudorf and Interfaith’s Executive Director Danielle McIntyre.

“Food banks across the country are community organizations. We are not government-run, we are just a bunch of people and community members that are coming together to make sure that other community members have enough to eat,” McIntyre told media at the event.

“Most food banks focus on meeting that immediate need – emergency food assistance when people don’t have enough on the table. Over the years, we’ve been evolving, to help address the underlying issues of why people are accessing the food bank in the first place.”

Cupcakes celebrating Interfaith’s 30th anniversary (Lethbridge News Now)

She said that Interfaith’s renovated, large space allows them to offer various programs and provide a ‘hand-up’ to families and not just a ‘handout’.

Interfaith’s current facility was purchased in 2010. Originally, West Wind Gymnastics occupied 11,900 square feet in the front half of the building, with Interfaith occupying 9600 square feet in the back-end of the building. With West Wind’s move a few years ago, Interfaith has been able to expand its usage space. Future renovation plans include bringing the client services centre from the rear of the building to the front and adding four more classrooms for their outreach programs and community services.

“Predominantly, we try to focus on food security, so we have cooking classes that are free to the community. We also have a garden, where we are teaching people how to grow their own food,” McIntyre said.

“We have a food recovery program, where we teach people how to extend the shelf life of fruits, vegetables and of course dry foods that come into the food bank.”

In addition, Interfaith has programs that range from financial literacy to meal planning.

“It depends on which agency we’re working with for those programs. Basically, we’re trying to get a partnership with those groups that are able to connect people with the resources that they need…simple things like filing taxes so they can get their GST credits or their Child Tax,” she said.

“Those are services that are sometimes a little scary for families to access if they’re unfamiliar with the environment, don’t speak the language or whatever. When we partner with groups like Family Services, for example, it’s really handy to have interpreters. It’s really nice for us to be able to bring all sorts of services to the food bank so that we can get people past the food bank lineup.”

McIntyre said a lot of the work at Interfaith is done by a strong volunteer base. She said the community helps guide what kind of programs should be offered.

A section of the collection area at Interfaith Food Bank, with cold storage units in the background (Lethbridge News Now)

That community support and the sheer volume of donations has allowed them to grow.

“Over the years we moved from having a pickup truck to now having a big cube-van, to having a small fridge to now having giant walk-in freezers and coolers,” she said.

“The more people that come on board with the cause, the more we can build a facility that is able to meet those needs of the community.”

She remarked that Interfaith was built for the community by the community.

“It’s really nice to celebrate 30 years of service and the community coming together for 30 years but (it) would be really great if we didn’t need food banks to begin with,” McIntyre said.

“I think the evolution of food banks – moving on from just collecting food like a bank and then handing it out later on, has been the real difference for the families that we serve.”

The community kitchen at Interfaith (Lethbridge News Now)

She added that the more they look at what has been built over the last 30 years, they can take in the amount of lives that have been changed through the food bank.

McIntyre, who has been with Interfaith since 2006, said it’s been a fun ride and extremely rewarding.

“It’s been really wonderful to have people get together and put on a fashion show, or a charity dinner or a car show or a barbecue, (but) at the same time what really feels good is when a family comes in, gets the help that they need and then moves on and eventually becomes a donor or a volunteer.”

For more on Interfaith Food Bank, visit interfaithfoodbank.ca.

by Justin Goulet

Interfaith Food Bank celebrates 30-year anniversary

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