People who work for Fort McMurray charities haven’t been immune to the wildfire that wiped out whole sections of their community, but they are not letting it stop them from putting others first.
Their selfless efforts started on evacuation day, according to Wood Buffalo Food Bank Director Arianna Johnson.
“I want to thank my staff who manned the Mac Island Reception Centre as well as the food bank until the bitter end. Choosing to help their community, for some, came at a great personal loss.”
Many didn’t even get the chance to pack a bag.
“One from our board lost a business. We have another board member that lost a home. Several staff lost their homes,” Diane Shannon with the United Way said.
But they aren’t dwelling on that. Instead, they’re making plans to meet residents’ needs when they transition back to Fort McMurray.
“These folks are here -working, contributing, trying to help other people,” Shannon said. “Putting aside the knowledge that their own homes have been completely decimated.”
If they do have a home to go back to, that is also being shared.
“I have three rooms in my home and we’ve already offered them to people that have been impacted,” Shannon added.
“People who work in this industry – regardless of their personal loss – all they really want and need right now is to feel useful and feel like they’re helping the people of their community,” Johnson explained.
These charities were already hit hard by the economy. In 2015, there was a 72 per cent increase in the number of hampers the Wood Buffalo Food Bank provided.
“We were already expecting 2016 to show another significant increase and obviously that increase could be even more substantial now,” Johnson said.
Because of the food bank’s proximity to the fire as well as smoke damage and power loss, much of its food is likely ruined – especially perishables.
“We know that likely any of our boxed goods will have to be destroyed. Our canned goods should be fine and bagged goods will depend on the type of goods and how they’re bagged,” Johnson said.
They won’t be alone in restocking though. A warehouse in Leduc was recently donated as storage space.
“The first night, we pulled in 166 pallets of food. This is a very large space but as you can see, it’s starting to fill up quite quickly,” Alberta Food Banks director Stefanie Rigby said.
“We’re getting massive corporate donations brought in so we needed more storage space,” Johnson said. “The Edmonton and Calgary food banks are also storing food that will eventually get shipped up to us, but they’re also feeding our community.”
A virtual grocery store has also been set up where people can buy healthy foods and donate them to the Wood Buffalo Food Bank when they’re ready to accept them.
“They will drop it at my door,” Johnson said. “They have also committed that if I can’t take it all at once, they will split it up and they will not ship until we’re ready for it.”
These charities want to head into Fort McMurray before residents do in order to set up and prepare for the influx of clients they’re expecting.
“No matter how long we are out and what it looks like when we get back, no one in our community will go hungry and everyone in our community that needs us will find us standing there.”
The charities say they will work together to answer questions that they don’t even know the answers to yet.
“We’re all just going to dig in and do whatever we can to help refer people and connect people to the resources,” Johnson said.
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