Len: [00:00:02]
Welcome. My name is Len Lane, and I am the founder and president of Brokers for Life Inc., and we are Dominion Lending Centres in Western Canada. The topic of our podcast will be about what we consider to be Real Life Mortgage Solutions. Welcome back. Today’s episode should be December 8th, just before we take the Christmas break. We have a very special guest today. She holds the Order of Canada. She is the director for the Edmonton Food Bank, which is one of the… Again, we’re finishing up the episodes of the charities that we try to help out with as much as we can. And from every mortgage that is funded with DLC Mortgage Brokers for Life, we make a donation to the Edmonton Food Bank. So think about them this time of year. It’s a year round thing. When you hear the episode, they’ll talk about feeding over 40,000 families a month in Edmonton. It’s almost half a million people every year. So think about where your extra donation goes this year. Food bank is always in need and we will talk to everybody again in January. Sixth is the return episode. I will be in Mexico still for another day or so after that, but back into the wrap up of Season Four. I have a very special guest this morning, Miss Marjorie Benz. Order of Canada is part of her title, but she’s the Executive Director and the Founder of Edmonton Food Bank as well. Is that correct? Is that correct?

Marjorie: [00:00:58] No, actually, the organization was formed in 1981, and I started as a volunteer in 1987. I’ve been Executive Director since 1989, so 36 years. So I’ve been with it for a while, but there was a lot of great people that were part of the formation of the organization before I started.

Len: [00:01:18] Before you started. Okay. Yeah. So that’s me not trusting the internet. That’s part of where… that shows up in a couple places, right? So, but in 1989, a long time. I have actually lived in Alberta since about 1978, I think it was originally. So I’ve seen a lot of… we’ve both seen a lot of changes in the province over that time, but it seems that the need for the food bank is also changing. But it’s changing. Not in a good way. So maybe let’s talk about some of the stats that you’ve seen over the last since, let’s say, since the pandemic. Is the usage up of people coming to the food bank?

Marjorie: [00:01:55] Yeah. So during the pandemic, we saw some… At one point we saw some softening or reduced numbers of people needing our services because the federal government had introduced certain measures to help people during the pandemic, like CERB. And then since the pandemic, in particular the last couple of years, we’ve seen an escalating number of people needing our services because of the affordability crisis, increased cost of housing and cost of food, and all the things that I think people are talking about more over the last couple of years because more people are experiencing and seeing those changes happening.

Len: [00:02:38] I saw a stat from over the Thanksgiving long weekend that it was almost a 400% increase for people who actually came out to get a Thanksgiving meal. And I don’t know if that was here. And in Calgary, I’m sure there were quite similar. Right, that the demand is not slowing down.

Marjorie: [00:02:55] I mean, you just need to talk to anybody in a grocery store or anywhere. You might run into the average Albertan or Edmontonian and certainly affordability comes up. And what happens when people have less discretionary income, when they’re low income, there isn’t any flexibility in their budget. And so what happens is after they pay their fixed costs like their rent and utilities, they have to stretch the rest to pay for food and those types of expenses. And that’s where they may find themselves in really challenging times and need the services of the food bank or other help in the community.

Len: [00:03:40] Even to do the regular shopping. We… you have to today kind of consider do you really want to pay that for beef or things like that? And I think we find that every level of the community is kind of struggling with food prices for sure, because it’s, it has gone right through the roof. A lot of different ways to help the food bank. We do our little bit with every file that we fund. What are some of the other great ways that people can help with the food bank?

Marjorie: [00:04:12] Well, frequently there’s special events happening in the community. And of course, we’re heading into the Christmas and festive season where you’ll see a lot of opportunities to support the food bank, whether it be an event at Candy Cane Lane or simply dropping a nonperishable food item off at your grocery store when you’re doing shopping for yourself or your family. And when the common or more common ways of donating the food bank now is through online is by just simply visiting our website and following the link that says donate now. And that takes us to our Canada House link, which is our charitable partner platform for those types of donations. That seems to be an easy way to make contributions, is through that online portal and through the website. And from time to time, we’ll have matching opportunities for people to donate. So there’s Giving Tuesday that’ll be coming up. And just more recently, we had a campaign where Epcor matched dollars that were donated to the food bank. So if people visit our website, there’s often more information about how they can support our work. Len, you and I talked about our common friend Ken Mandan, and he’ll be having his campaign the last week before Christmas.

Len: [00:05:33] Right. I don’t know how many years, I know he took a little bit of time off there for himself, but got to be 8 or 9 years ago I think that that I first ran into Dan. I knew he’d been out there for long before that as well. So. Well, well worth filling a truck with him. That was an interesting adventure as well. And he sleeps outside almost, in the truck at least. It’s great.

Marjorie: [00:05:52] And I believe this will be his 15th year of camping out for us.

Len: [00:05:57] That’s great.

Marjorie: [00:05:59] What a trooper, right?

Len: [00:05:59] Yeah. So obviously a need for volunteers. So what are the different ways? I actually saw people digging potatoes and my back hurt because my father is Irish, and we always had an acre of potatoes that felt like. But I’m sure it was less so the volunteers, the kind of hours donated to what’s, what are the areas that they need the most help in for volunteers?

Marjorie: [00:06:22] So there’s always volunteer opportunities at Edmonton’s Food Bank, and again, through our website, people can sign up to volunteer with us. There’s an application process a little bit. And then, of course, we ask people to come in for a brief orientation before they start volunteering with us, and then we follow some safety protocol to make sure that people are going to be safe when they’re working in our warehouse. And sometimes people, volunteers volunteer as a group, like from work, might have several people in their workplace that want to come in together as a team building, and the process is slightly different than it is for individuals because individuals can more or less drop in, whereas the groups we want to make sure we are able to provide support to our volunteer groups. So when people visit the portal, it’s usually pretty easy to find out where and how. And of course, we do have a wonderful volunteer manager and a volunteer specialist who will help people if they run into any trouble with the portal. As well as there is more opportunities, I think people envision packing hampers or working in the warehouse sorting food, and that’s always a really important piece of our work. However, there are other volunteer opportunities, like for example, working at a special event or food drive, taking calls from people needing food support in our call center. And we also have a program called Beyond Food, which helps people with resume writing and job searches and other mechanisms to obtain some more self-sufficiency in their lives. And those are volunteer opportunities as well.

Len: [00:08:13] So quite, quite a long list. I was actually there sorting bags with the Alberta… I guess it was Alberta Mortgage Brokers Association. We were when you were getting ready to send the bags out to the stores for Christmas last year.

Marjorie: [00:08:26] Oh wonderful.

Len: [00:08:27] Okay. Going like, not something I would have thought that but I guess that that doesn’t come pre-made. You have to break them down into packages that go out the door as well. So we’ve gone through ways to give, how to volunteer. So maybe let’s talk about the stats that you’ve seen over the last few years. We kind of went back over what’s happened since the pandemic, but are they? I guess not forward stats. Are they thinking that you jumped up almost 10% over two years in the amount of people using the food bank? Do they expect that to continue to grow?

Marjorie: [00:09:02] Well, I think that we’re… again, I’ll just repeat the number because it is an incredible number. We’re serving over 40,000 people each month in our programs, right? And so a hamper is a box of food that an individual or family take home with them. And then they prepare the contents. And that’s probably the program we’re best known for is those hamper programs. And we have over 80 different distribution points throughout the city that are affiliated with us, that people actually pick up the hampers that are made. I think another that people are not as familiar with is that we, we’re kind of a hybrid food bank in that most large food banks either act as a warehouse for other organizations or they do direct service. We do both. And so we get, we have a call center that takes about 400 calls a day from people needing help. We distribute food to over 380 different schools, soup kitchens, shelters and other organizations. So when that can of peanut butter that you’ve donated could be going to a hamper program, it could be going to soup kitchen, it could be going to a shelter program. And we usually distribute to over 100 schools as well. And there’s, so there’s that whole warehouse piece that’s distributing to other community partners that are helping people in need in our community. So, for example, Hope Mission usually picks up 2 to 3 times a day from us.

Len: [00:10:38] A day? Rreally? Yeah. I did know that the Hope Mission had done that. I didn’t realize it was that big of an extra need for what they do as well. So that’s excellent. Can you maybe expand on the term gleaners?

Marjorie: [00:10:54] So our corporate name is the Edmonton Gleaners Association, not the Edmonton Cleaners Association, but the Edmonton Gleaners Association. And to glean means to gather by patient harvest. And so as an organization, when we were first formed, the original work was gleaning food from the food industry, food that was edible but not marketable, that food that was in surplus, and bringing it to a central point and then distributing it to soup kitchens and shelters. And that’s still a big chunk of our work. We still glean about 60% of our work. Probably 60% of our food is coming from glean sources. So when you talked about digging potatoes frequently and in Alberta, there will be root vegetables that are surplus from farmers. And we certainly know about zucchini surpluses in the fall. But again, grocery stores. We are fussy consumers and they do rotate things like breads and pastries, things like yogurts and cottage cheese. So we pick up throughout the course of the week from different locations. And then that’s brought back to our warehouse, and it’s used as part of the food that’s being distributed. And about 60% of the food is from gleaned sources. Then, of course, we do our special events and food drives to obtain food. And we purchased about $4 million worth of food each year. To give you an example, our eggs are over $14,000 a week just in egg purchases.

Len: [00:12:32] Wow. And that’s a staggering number of eggs, I’m sure. So. But a very basic staple, I think, for most households, right?

Marjorie: [00:12:40] Yeah. We love being able to provide eggs because you can do them in so many different ways. They reach across a lot of different health concerns or cultural diets. And so eggs are just a really good basic item to have available for people in need.

Len: [00:13:01] Yeah. Mm. Yeah, and I guess take it for granted… we have had rough times in our life personally. And it’s always good that there is something out there to help support those that aren’t able to make literally make the ends meet. Right? So it’s a a huge organization and I’m so glad that it is there. And we’re very happy that we’re able to support it. And I don’t know what year this is 5 or 6 years ago that we started that. And it’s an ongoing one, I don’t think as long as we’re in business, which is looking like it’s going to be a lot longer than I planned, but that’s just the way it goes, right? But the Edmonton Food Bank will be top of our list for making our donation every year. So anyways, I…

Marjorie: [00:13:44] We really appreciate your support and kind words. And certainly if any of your listeners are outside of Edmonton, the food banks surrounding Edmonton have websites and they can check out for opportunities to help their local food banks and every contribution is appreciated. We do, we say we do our work can by can and dollar by dollar. And so every can of soup means that somebody had a meal.

Len: [00:14:11] Exactly, right. So great. And thank you for your time.

Marjorie: [00:14:15] Appreciate your time, Len.

Len: [00:14:17]
Thanks for listening today. I hope you found the information that we provided to be useful in your mortgage journey. And remember, you can always find our associates at www.brokersforlife.ca/associates. Have a great day.