The Fort McMurray Food Bank is seeing a growing demand for food as the local economy struggles and many people find themselves in need for the first time. In fact many people who used to donate food to the food bank are now asking for help as a result of the change in their economic and financial situations. According to Mayor Melissa Blake “We’ve seen job lay-offs and certainly shifting and transitioning in the community … draws heavily on our non-profit society, but first and foremost it’s got to be our food bank. It’s hugely concerning that we’ve had the people in our community affected as they have been by the sustained low oil pricing.” The food bank has seen requests for food assistance rise 70% over the same time period for last year and this increase is alarming.

The growing demand for food assistance has left the Fort McMurray Food Bank struggling to meet the needs of the local population. Arianna Johnson, the executive director of the food bank, explained “It just makes us worry that we’re going to have to work that much harder to raise the funds necessary because as need goes up, our expense goes up whereas the donor base is going down. We certainly are having to do a lot of things to stretch our food stocks further and make sure that we have enough food to give some to everybody,” Johnson also explained “Coming into the fall and the Christmas season of course, our food stocks increase drastically because that’s when the majority of our food drives are. We know how isolated we are and therefore we know we have to take care of each other. We are a village that makes sure nobody goes without.”