The Mountain View Regional Food Bank has been faring well this season, thanks to the many volunteers and organizations that devote their time and resources to the valuable community asset.The facility, which is small, helped feed 4,314 people so far this year, and serves all of Mountain View County. It is located at 5025 50 St., Olds.“So many of us live paycheque by paycheque,” said Pat Graham, who has volunteered at the food bank for 21 years, “so if any mishap happens, they may not be prepared for it.“Some only (come) once, others come in about three times a year, and others we only see once, because something happened in their lives that made them need our help and then they get back on their feet again.”Gayle Meier, a volunteer for 12 years who also sits on the board of directors, said that the food bank gets tremendous support from across the county.“The people in Olds are just very supportive and very awesome and so are the other communities too,” said Meier, “like the (Didsbury) Lions Club. Oh my gosh, that was unbelievable, and the same with Carstairs and the other towns we support and give hampers to, they're always willing to pitch in.”The volunteer base, she added, is also a point of pride for the food bank, which sees on average 15 volunteers each Tuesday, which is when the food bank is open.“We do have a lot of volunteers, and quite often when they come in they just have to sit around and we can't always use them, depending on how busy we are,” she said.“We usually do upwards of 50 hampers per Tuesday, well if we have 15 volunteers. We can always use volunteers, but sometimes there isn't enough for them to do.”But when the Didsbury Lions Club held its annual food drive, bringing in over 5,500 pounds of food, she stated the food bank needed all the help it could get just to take account of the new stock.The food bank also has a valuable list of on-call volunteers, as well as those who own trucks, to accommodate picking up large amounts of food with little notice.“And we need the help of younger people, because most of the volunteers at the food bank are older, or retired people, such as myself,” said Meier. “So sometimes we need the help of younger people, so we have a list of people like that too.”She noted that the food bank makes up hampers with more than just food. They also include things like pet food, hygiene products, and even valuable coupons, taking on the cost with whatever money has been donated.“Before the food drive with the Lions and the Latter Day Saints,” she noted, “we had to go and buy baby food, not the formula, just baby food and Pablum, because we had none. But now we're in good shape because we did get quite a bit donated.”Olds College has also been a blessing, she added, 4-H and other donors will donate cattle to Olds College. Students then butcher and prepare the meat as part of their hands-on studies for the Meat Processing course, and then donate it to the food bank.The college also offers an on-campus meat store. Meat that does not sell by Christmas or the spring, when the college does not offer its meat program, is also all donated to the food bank as well.“We're usually good with the food drives, the standard stuff, like soups and Kraft Dinner and whatever,” she said, “but they sometimes forget animals, so we usually are quite low on dog and cat food, but we are on board with a couple of pet stores in Olds that are now donating their dog food when it's close to outdating.”She noted that the community support has been very helpful. From Tim Hortons, Sobeys, Co-op, and even AG Foods in Didsbury.“And then we get donations from M&M Meats, the grocery stores, and we get quite a bit from Wal-Mart. They've been really really good.”Winter is the busy season, she added, so all the support they have been receiving recently has helped them to prepare for it.To pick up a hamper, she said that residents only need to provide identification for the residents living in the house the hamper will be going to.
