The recent Syncrude food drive was a huge success, providing approximately 84,000 pounds of food donations to the Wood Buffalo Food Bank to help the hungry and local residents who have a need. This amount is more than the total for the event last year, and the food donations are sorely needed as the economy still struggles. The director for the WBFB, Arianna Johnson, told the media that the total amount of food donated is the largest amount since she became director of the organization. “This community takes care of itself, and when a need is put out there this community always rises to that challenge. I think that those who had the ability to give this year understood that they may have to dig a little bit deeper, and give a little bit more. We can all hope that the need will go down, of course we always do. But we need to be realistic about where the economy is. We suspect that the need will continue to rise for at least a while longer.”
The Syncrude food drive provided much needed food donations for the Wood Buffalo Food Bank. The food bank has struggled to keep up with demand in recent months, and some people who usually provide food donations have themselves had to ask for help. Johnson explained that there have already been steps taken to help meet the local need for food “We’ve cut the size of our hampers back three times this year to try to stretch our food further. We will be maintaining current levels…for the food we’ve received over the weekend, to try to stretch it as far as we can.” In addition to 84,000 pounds of food the Syncrude food drive also raised over $390,000. This year Syncrude donated $75,000 in total, and company employees donated many hours of time as well. Have you ever had to use a food bank? If so why?