Left to right: Byron Bradley (The Mustard Seed), Mike Olesen (Westerner Park) and Alison Kolisnyk (Red Deer Food Bank Society)

By Troy Gillard

spike in demand expected

Red Deer Food Bank and The Mustard Seed partner to provide more food hampers

May 27, 2020 | 11:01 AM

With a rise in demand likely on the way, The Mustard Seed, Red Deer Food Bank Society and Westerner Park are teaming up to ensure enough food hampers are available for those who need them.

A “satellite depot” is opening at Westerner Park where staff and volunteers will assemble food hampers to be delivered by volunteers to households throughout Red Deer.

The satellite depot model follows one employed in Edmonton and Calgary as well as other cities across the country and the world. Crossroads Church just west of Red Deer is already running a satellite depot in their gymnasium that has helped over 1,100 people during the pandemic by providing over 230 hampers.

The process of requesting a hamper through the food bank’s screening process will remain the same. They in turn will let The Mustard Seed know where deliveries need to be made.

The satellite depot won’t be open to the public, but rather will be a facility for preparing hampers for delivery.

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“During this unprecedented time we know that food security is one of the most important things for our community,” says Byron Bradley, The Mustard Seed’s managing director for central Alberta. “With this (facility) we’re going to be able to have a spot where we’ll be able to produce more hampers and increase the accessibility for Red Deerians.”

Alice Kolisnyk with the Red Deer Food Bank Society says thanks to “fantastic support” from the community they’ve met the demand for hampers thus far during the COVID-19 pandemic. But she expects they’ll soon need to step up their efforts.

“We do anticipate a spike in demand with emergency funding running out for people, and there’s still going to be a lot of people who aren’t going back to work as soon as everybody else is. So we anticipate the needs increasing dramatically in the next month or so. This (depot) will allow us to help deal with that increase.”

Expanded refrigeration capacity at Westerner Park will allow for more donations of fresh food items in addition to the non-perishable food items that are constantly in demand, Kolisnyk noted.

Westerner Park CEO Mike Olesen says they are donating the space for the satellite depot as part of their commitment to being more involved with community initiatives.

“What we’ve got now is plenty of space that has refrigeration and a wide open area to improve logistics so that (hampers) can get out quicker and be managed well. Any way we can support it we’re happy to do so.”

Bradley says funding for the satellite depot, to the tune of approximately $300,000, was made available through a successful joint provincial grant application and will allow it to operate through the end of 2020. Beyond that they hope to find a long-term, sustainable plan.

“The advantage is we’re going to be able to bring hampers to people’s front doors,” Bradley explained. “We’ve been able to do a bit of that during COVID… (this) is going to widen that access and create another space and more opportunity to do that.”

The Mustard Seed continues to run its school lunch program during the pandemic with 400 lunches being prepared daily. The program currently serves 35 schools in the city, with Bradley noting they expect to expand to other central Alberta communities soon. They also plan to run the program during the summer months for the first time ever.

Hours at the existing Red Deer Food Bank facility (7429 49 Ave.) are also being expanded to include weekends and holidays.