The Rotary Community Food Bank Drive is looking for volunteers to help collect donations for the Grande Prairie Salvation Army Food Bank next month. 

Chair for the Rotary Community Food Bank Drive, Lori Pollack, explains that the need for the food bank is not going down, with one in three people estimated to have used it. She adds fifty per cent of those benefiting from the food bank are children, and there are a number of seniors as well. 

“The Salvation Army has been doing great work trying to help those in need, and the Rotary Clubs of Grand Prairie are coordinating with the community to try and help that go a little further,” Pollack says. 

For the September 11th event, Pollack says they will need between 700 and 1,000 volunteers to go door-to-door canvassing. The volunteers will go around the community and collect non-perishable items such as canned fish or beans, canned fruits, canned vegetables, soups, and school snacks.

“Another thing that they’re always looking for is unopened personal hygiene items like toothbrushes, feminine products,” Pollack says. “They tell us that tough decisions are made every month between paying a bill and purchasing these necessary items.”

She adds it is ideal for volunteer groups to have five or six people so there is a driver and there are at least two people on each side of the road going door-to-door as the driver creeps down the street, and any donations can be put in the vehicle.

Along with the in-person collection, there will also be an online store on the food drives website. 

“We did that because we thought it might be kind of fun to create a shopping experience. So you can go into the online store and you can pick out whatever food items, the equivalent of the dollar value, and then you can make your cash donation online through that website.”

The food drive collection will take place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on September 11th.