(Facebook/ PA Outreach)

By Nigel Maxwell

Community supports

Local group fills lunch void amid COVID pandemic

Apr 20, 2020 | 5:22 PM

Community groups who help the city’s less fortunate, are struggling to keep up during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Staff at P.A. Outreach have been helping provide up to 200 sandwiches a day to other community organizations, who in turn have been putting together bag lunches for the homeless. Prince Albert Outreach has also been providing hampers, the majority going to the students who would normally be attending WonSka cultural school. Supervisor/ Youth Justice Worker Sheena Smytaniuk explained many of the children rely on the school’s breakfast and lunch programs.

“With them being out of school, a lot of them aren’t eating,” she said.

Smytaniuk said money that would have otherwise go to school outings and other programming, can be used without causing too much of an impact on resources, but added there have been cases where staff are using money from their own pockets.

“I do know there was one of our staff members that bought lunch for somebody on the street and went and grabbed a couple things from the grocery store for somebody else that was asking,” she said.

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In addition to challenges around funding, staff have also been on the move themselves the past month. The normal office which is attached to a Sask. Rivers School Division school, has been temporarily closed, and so staff have been using other facilities to handle appointments and phone calls.

Anyone who needs help from P.A. Outreach Services, call (306) 961 – 5897.

nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell