Edmonton’s Food Bank in need of Thanksgiving hampers

Tamisan Bencz-Knight with Edmonton's Food Bank and John Elford from Epcor joined Your Morning Edmonton on how you can support the Hamper Program.

Tamisan Bencz-Knight with Edmonton’s Food Bank and John Elford from Epcor joined Kent Morrison on Your Morning Edmonton on how you can support the Hamper Program ahead of Thanksgiving.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Kent Morrison: Our city continues to grow, so does the need of Edmonton’s most vulnerable. Since 2020, there’s been more than a 100 per cent increase in the number of people using the monthly hamper program. This year, an average of 43,690 people use the hampers every single month. That’s approximately the same as the population of the city of Grand Prairie. Tamisan how difficult is it to get those hampers out to everybody?

Tamisan Bencz-Knight: We’re very fortunate that we have hundreds of volunteers helping us. The challenge has been that volume of increase. If we were a business, that’d be great. But unfortunately as a nonprofit feeding people, it’s a challenge. We have to get the food in and we’ve been purchasing more than ever before. We’re very fortunate that we had our Edmonton food drive a couple weekends ago. That brought in a lot of non-perishable food. But as you can see, it’s a combination of fresh, frozen, as well as non-perishable food available.

Kent: What’s all in the hampers?

Tamisan: We have everything from garden potatoes that somebody harvested, garden carrots, to packaged products that might not have been deemed sellable at a grocery store. There’s gleaned food, somebody’s apples, good eating apples. But here’s some numbers on some of the products that we’ve had to purchase to make sure we made a hamper. This is a two-person hamper for the festive season that I brought. This will provide a parent and a child a beautiful dinner and extra food or it’ll provide for a two-person household with those basic necessities to keep them going. The financial cost, like $3.40 for eggs, is great. We buy $14,000 worth of eggs every week to try to keep up.

Kent: We all know about the rising cost of groceries and it certainly has an impact here. That’s where Epcor comes in. John, tell us how you’re helping.

John Elford: As we head into the Thanksgiving season, the community is in need, so we’re pleased to announce that from now until Oct. 10, we’re going to match every financial donation made to the food bank up to $25,000. We’re really encouraging people to get out, give a little, give a little bit more and we’ll match that so that folks can have a happy Thanksgiving.

Kent: That is an enormous help for people who are coming into the food bank because there may be people who don’t have the time to donate food, but certainly the money is accepted.

Tamisan: Of course. Edmonton’s Food Bank isn’t government funded so because of our friends at Epcor and the community, we’re able to do the work that we’re doing. It is because of everyone that donates. Whether it’s their time, donation of food or donation of money, we’re able to continue to help our neighbours.

Kent: Partners like this in the community certainly go a long way, right?

Tamisan: Yes, everybody loves to match. I love making my donations that go double that amount, so it’s awesome.

Kent: How can people get involved in volunteering?

Tamisan: I started as a volunteer back in 1988 with the organization and nowadays, it’s so much easier. You just go to our website, click on volunteer and the application is right online. Once you get your orientation, you self-direct. People will come and donate their time to help us pack the food hampers, distribute it, work at the pantry and do different activities to help us keep them going.