Target Hunger seeking volunteers for food drive

Local food banks are gearing up for a food drive on the second Saturday of June.

Target Hunger is the annual food drive done every June requesting community members to donate the most wanted food items for our local food banks.

This year, Target Hunger Lethbridge has set a goal to raise 50,000 pounds of food. In Lethbridge, the food is equally split between Lethbridge and Interfaith Food Banks.

According to Danielle McIntyre, the executive director with Interfaith Food Bank Society of Lethbridge, the organization is a hundred per cent reliant on community donations. Aside from the donations themselves, volunteers are needed for the drop-off and pick-up of donation bags.

“They can also volunteer on site on event day to help us bring in and source all of the food,” said McIntyre, “And then we’ve also had volunteers that have been engaged with us, for planning, organizing, and putting the whole food drive together.”

This is the third year running the food drive with COVID as a factor, with McIntyre explaining the main trouble in the first year was community participation. The second year of the pandemic saw an increase in donations they did not anticipate.

“Last year restrictions had just lifted in the summertime, and we were very lucky and had a record year bringing in 73,000 pounds of food,” said McIntyre. “So we’re kind of hoping that we’ll have a happy medium [for donations] this year.”

Target Hunger Lethbridge has moved to an online signup tool and McIntyre said finding volunteers has become simpler because people can go to the website and sign up.

Not everything has gone as well as the website, noted McIntyre.

“We have had a lot of issues with supply chain and we’re not always able to access all of the foods and quantity that we would like to,” revealed McIntyre. “Occasionally we do have circumstances where our manpower is still affected by people having to isolate or who are not able to come in because they are being cautious.”

Local businesses, clubs, churches, schools, gated communities and apartment complexes can request a donation bin be placed and picked up from their location. McIntyre expects many of the in-person events will return with Target Hunger being the first to take place.

For more information on how to donate or volunteer visit targethungerlethbridge.com.