January Updates

-Hinton and area has a population of about 11,000 people, of which we estimate 300-500 require support from our food bank at least once per year. Our clients live in poverty, many are the working poor, many are aboriginal, many have disabilities preventing them from working, and many are single parent families.

-We serve our clients in person from our leased building at 124 Market St. on Tuesday evening. We serve an average of 55 families/week, representing 135 people. Rather than provide standard hampers, our food bank offers a food hamper order form so clients receive what they most need and want. In addition to food hampers, Hinton Food Bank provides various toiletries, fresh food vouchers, public transit passes and social agency referral information to our clients.

-Most food we provide is bought locally, donated by Hinton residents, or provided by the Food Banks Alberta provincial food-share network.

-With a motto of “Community helping Community”, Hinton Food Bank is truly blessed to receive amazing support from individuals, businesses and social agencies to enable it to operate successfully.

-The Hinton Food Bank is 100% volunteer run. This involves casual volunteers, ongoing volunteer positions and board members who we estimate contribute their talents and time for a total of about 4000 hours of time each year. (2 full-time positions!)

-As a non-profit enterprise, we invest about $100,000 in our operation to better the lives of families in need. This amount does not include the of donations of funds, food and “in kind” labour services, as well as volunteer time contributed annually which we estimate equals over $200,000 additionally. Our two largest costs are food and building rent/operation.

-In 2020, we served 7000 individual people over 52 weeks including food hampers being delivered for about 4 months for Hinton Food Bank by the Hinton Employment and Learning Place (HELP) and Hinton Friendship Centre during periods of substantial COVID-risk in Hinton.

-A big thank you to all the volunteers, donors, businesses and agencies who support the Hinton Food
Bank so we can help those less fortunate in our community to put food on their family’s table.