Stacy Box with all the food collected for the Prince Albert Food Bank. (submitted photo/Stacy Box)

By Jaryn Vecchio

Fun Competition

Staff at P.A. hospital raise over 1,500 pounds of food for Food Bank

Dec 14, 2023 | 5:00 AM

Healthcare professionals at Prince Albert’s Victoria Hospital are helping the local food bank during its busiest time of the year.

Last week, 1,560 pounds of food was given to the non-profit. It was all collected by healthcare professionals who were taking part in a competitive food drive amongst themselves.

“We help people every day in our jobs, but I feel like, especially in this economy and inflation, lots of people are feeling the pinch. If there’s a little bit that we can do to alleviate some of that stress, it’s well worth it,” said Stacy Box, a licensed practical nurse and the organizer of the fundraiser.

The medical floor ended up raising the most food, nearly 700 pounds. They alone almost collected the same amount that was raised during the first food drive last year. That fundraiser brought in roughly 1,000 pounds of food.

“They just blew us out of the water. They have bragging rights for the remainder of the year,” said Box.

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This donation will be quite helpful for the Food Bank. The Christmas season is the organization’s busiest time of the year.

Kim Scruby, the Food Bank’s executive director, said they usually hand out around 1,200 hampers a month. This is around 500 more than what they were doing about six years ago.

They’re expecting to surpass 1,200 this month as they tend to see many new faces around this time of year.

“After the middle of the month… that’s when a lot of folks realize that they’re winding up short after buying presents, paying bills, and that type of thing,” said Scruby.

He expects it will take a couple of weeks before they go through all of the roughly 1,600 pounds of food they received from the hospital. This is good news as the Food Bank aims to collect enough donations around Christmas to last them a few months into the new year.

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Jaryn.Vecchio@pattisonmedia.com

X: @princealbertnow