The Helping Hands Society of Grande Prairie is hoping to receive enough donations to help fill enough hampers to feed 50 families across the region over the Easter holiday weekend.
Founder Jennifer Farquhar says the plan is to fill the hampers with fresh food, which is something that can be difficult to come across for families who are accessing the program.
“We are hoping to provide a feeling of normal, not everybody gets the ability to purchase a meal and sit down with their families, so just the ability to celebrate with their families is helpful,” she says.
Farquhar says the organization has been steadily helping more and more families across the region on a regular basis since around the turn of the year. She says there has been a sustained influx of those accessing the food hampers which is a growing concern.
“Even just our weekly hampers that we do have gone up by four times because we get requests from other requests at this point because they are just running out of options,”
“It’s been rough to get donations, and we are at the point where we are helping a lot of social workers feed people every week… we’ve gone from three whole families a week to at least a dozen,”
Farquhar adds for the Easter hamper campaign, they’re hoping to receive either cash or gift cards to the local Superstore, as they have a working partnership with the grocery chain.
“They tend to just put it all together for us, and we pay it. We get a really good deal from them, which is very helpful,” she adds.
To donate, you can either contact The Helping Hands Society of Grande Prairie directly or drop off Superstore gift cards and cash donations to Grande Prairie Auto Repair during regular business hours.