Food bank gets generous donation

“This is huge, this is going to help out about 250 households in Prince Albert,” he said.

Gathering the meat was a collaborative effort involving a number of community groups. Along with CMPA, Saskatchewan Polytechnic, Prince Albert Wildlife Federation, Caribou Transport and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s Saskatchewan chapter supported the effort.

The donation, which is the first of its kind in P.A., comes to the food bank at a time when it is truly needed, as the organization is seeing more people coming through the doors.

“Our numbers are going up, I think we’re up 10 per cent or so over last year, so, unfortunately we are getting busier,” Scruby said.

Dr. Shelley Storey with Community Mobilization Prince Albert speaks about Hunters With Heart (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

Dr. Shelley Storey, educational representative at CMPA, said the effort came from a group member’s idea.

“One of the people we work with at CMPA is an avid hunter and he said, ‘Well you know what, hunters could donate to the food bank, we just need a process in order to do that,” she said.

Once the idea got going, Storey reached out to the wildlife federation, who represent a number of hunters in the area. She added all of the groups she asked to take part were in right away.

“I asked them once and that was it, they were all on board,” she said.

CMPA’s efforts were supported by staff at the Ministry of the Environment, as they made sure the group was aware of the regulations that needed to be followed in order for the meat to be safe for consumption. This included having all of the animals tested for chronic wasting disease.

Once the meat was collected and tested, it was sent to Saskatchewan Polytechnic, where students in the school’s retail meat program worked to prepare it.

Don Cyr, an instructor with Saskatchewan Polytechnic in the retail meat program explained being able to prepare the meat for the food bank was an important learning opportunity for his students.

“Anywhere in Saskatchewan we have small town butcher shops and custom cutting is a large part of the day to day business of any small butcher shop across the province,” he said.

Once the animals were sent to them the carcasses had to be thawed out. Students than got to work preparing the meat, which took about a day.

“We had a quick turnaround in getting the meat to the food bank,” Cyr said.

Saskatchewan Polytechnic was able to provide the food bank with a variety of cuts ranging from meat which would be good for stews, to medallion cuts.

“A large part of the meat is into the ground meat product, which is of course always versatile,” Cyr said.

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn

by Michael Joel-Hansen

Food bank gets generous donation

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