ATHABASCA - Athabasca's Good Samaritan Ministries Association received an early Christmas present Dec. 18 in the form of a $57,300 grant from the provincial government to go towards supporting its food bank.
Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken presented the cheque to the association on behalf of the Ministry of Culture, Multiculturalism, and Status of Women through its Community Initiatives Program.
“I would like to thank all the volunteers from the Good Samaritan Ministries Association for all their efforts to help improve the Athabasca and surrounding communities,” van Dijken said. “The decisions and priorities for each grant is decided through local community-level decision making and not by some bureaucrat based in Edmonton.”
Kerri Daniels, president of the Good Samaritan Ministries Association, said they originally applied for the grant in March.
“We kept track of all the volunteers and the hours they worked,” Daniels said. “It took a while for the grant to get to us, but the important thing is that we have it now and just in time for Christmas.”
van Dijken admitted that there has been delays in rolling out grant funds due to the change in government last April.
“The public did have some concerns that the grant money wouldn’t continue,” he said. “But the money’s still rolling out and it’s always a great thing to honour our local volunteers for their efforts in the community.”
Daniels said the food bank currently has 35 regular volunteers.
“Just a week before we received the grant, we had 32 youth under the age of 10 show up to make about 100 hampers in about three hours,” she continued. “The youth came from the Athabasca Atom Hawks hockey team as well as from a couple of local church groups. The children were amazing, as they even cleaned up after themselves once they were done.”
She said the volunteers for this Christmas season have been nothing short of amazing.
“We continue to have groups come up from Clyde at least twice a week to help us out, and we also have some volunteers from Athabasca University give us a hand,” Daniels explained. “As well, the Buy-Low and Independent grocery stores continue to donate record amounts of food for the roughly 2,300 people we continue to serve in the community and surrounding area. The Athabasca Fire Department even held a pair of stuff-a-truck events to help us boost donations in cash and supplies for our cause.”
Besides giving their families food, Daniels added they also come in for some clothing and hygiene products, as well as some counselling.
“We get people from various walks of life needing our services,” she said. “We even get some social services employees sending us some people who could some help.”
Daniels said the grant money will go a long way to helping to keep their program going.
“Every little bit helps,” she said.
