The Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre is highlighting the importance of giving over the holiday season.
Donations not only help fight hunger but also support the programs and services the non-profit organization provides in the city, executive director Laurie O’Connor said.
“Typically, Saskatoon residents are amazing and we can feel their support wrapping around us over the holiday season,” O’Connor said.
“This is our major fundraising season of course so we have broad big audacious goals — $500,000 and 500,000 pounds of food — we hope to bring in before the end of December.”
Saskatoon-based fertilizer company Nutrien is matching up to $250,000 in cash donations made to food banks in the province until Dec. 31.
Donation bins are also set up at all major grocery stores in Saskatoon.
O’Connor added things tend to slow down for them after the holidays.
“It’s just to keep the message in your heart and in your mind that there is a great need in Saskatoon every month of the year,” O’Connor said.
“So after Christmas … to think about whether or not you might like to volunteer a few hours in January, February or March, or if you’re out grocery shopping to add something to those bins each time you’re there.”
The Saskatoon Food Bank said it distributed 83,207 hampers in 2018 to individuals and families — around 227,360 people — who had nowhere else to turn.
Saskatchewan children make up over 42 per cent of those using the services of food banks, according to Food Banks Canada’s hunger count 2019 report.