In 2022, the number of people visiting Brooks Food Bank rose starkly. The small organization, which serves the nearly 6,000 km2 county of Newell, began to struggle to provide for everyone who came to its doors. A year and a half later, the number of people in need has only increased.
Our neighbours are struggling. As housing costs continue to rise across the province, many families need help to make ends meet. They need help to afford to house and feed themselves and are having to cut corners on essential needs like groceries. This has led to a surge in demand for local food banks, leaving these organizations stretched to their limits.
According to Stats Canada, 9.9% of people now live below the poverty line, and the percentage of families using the food bank has almost doubled since 2019. It’s no longer just people on welfare who go to food banks—more and more people with jobs need help with groceries.
In Brooks, as with other smaller communities, food banks that once had a surplus to give to those in need are now struggling to keep up with demand. Brooks, a small city of 15,000, has always had limited food resources for its food bank. Historically, much of the food stocked in its food bank came from Calgary. However, as more people in Calgary are in need, less food can reach small towns.
Brooks’ story is told again and again across rural Alberta. Working-class people, who have always prided themselves on their ability to make their own way, can no longer pay their bills. Food Banks Alberta, the network of food banks that helps redistribute extra food, has nothing or not enough to send to small towns. Our neighbours, whom we see at work, church, and communities, go hungry.
Aurora Champlone, the Brooks Food Bank manager, told The Rockies.Life, there is much that can be done. Like most food banks, Brooks relies on community locals to support them. “Even if the average person can only give a few things, they can organize together. We have a ton of very small food drives that happen in our town – one by the library, one by the school, one during Halloween. Those sorts of things any average moderately wealthy person can take part in.”
Helping those in our communities struggling to feed themselves can be fun, too.
Champlone told The Rockies.Life, “We had a fun hip-hop event that happened recently and the proceeds of that went to us.” Several other small towns are also using Halloween events as an opportunity to ask for donations. Dr Giggles House of Pain in Chestermere and Lock Down Escape Rooms in Red Deer are both fundraising for their local food banks.
As Champlone said, “Individuals might not think that they have any power to help anything, but collective action is very powerful.”