The Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) held their annual Hamper Giveaway for low income families this week amidst growing calls for cost of living relief.
The hampers handed out at the former Allan Bird Memorial Centre site on Wednesday and Thursday included turkey, ham, cabbage, bag of carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers, among other food items.
PAGC agrologist Betty Marleau is in charge of farming operations in agriculture projects in Prince Albert district. She said there were plenty of families looking for help this Thanksgiving, with roughly 3,500 signed up for Hampers.
“That’s why we find such value in this project,” she said. “People are hurting. It’s not just low income earners. It’s a lot of people—middle income people—because you have a budget and all of a sudden everything, not just food, seems to have gone up a lot.”
In regular years, Marleau said they would put a call out on the PAGC Facebook page or website. Usually, she said, it would take a few days to fill up the request list. This year, she said, they filled up within 24 hours.
“Just like that, the requests filled in,” she said.
This year’s event nearly didn’t happen after a trailer fire at the SHARE building in Prince Albert. Marleau said volunteers and staff had just loaded hampers into a transport truck at the SHARE building. It caught fire maybe an hour later.
“They (the hampers) didn’t all burn, but there was lots of smoke and fire damage,” she said. “I think they’re sifting through them, but I don’t think there’s too many that are going to be able to be used. A lot of them were just cooked.
“You have 3,500 people signed up, and which one do you pick? Every second one? We decided we’d just go ahead. Damn the torpedoes.”
Marleau credited local businesses for stepping up to donate food to replace what was lost in the fire. They weren’t small donations either, with some businesses sending entire semi-trucks full of food to the PAGC. Some businesses and First Nations from outside the province also chipped in.
She also credited local volunteers for coming in on short notice to help sort through everything for new hampers.
In the end, Marleau said they might have even more food than they would have had without the fire. She expected staff and volunteers would stay late into the day on Thursday handing it out. Depending on what’s left, she said, they may even hand out more on Friday.
This isn’t the first year the PAGC has handed out hampers to vulnerable families in Prince Albert. Marleau said it’s a popular program and will likely continue next year.
“Hopefully it will be an annual thing, but it’s all depending on the donations we get in and the funding that Grand Council has,” she said.
–with files from Jason Kerr/Daily Herald
