Our Commitment to Client-Centricity

In the Fall of 2024, we launched our new 5-year strategic plan along with an updated mission statement and pillars to guide and support our work.  

One of those pillars is client-centricity. We feed people. As one of the largest non-profits in the city of Calgary, we have a staff of just over 100. Many of the roles are not client-facing and are not located at or near our distribution centre. This holiday season we decided to do something about that, and Operation Holiday Cheer was born.  

The Calgary Food Bank has a method of distribution that is different from many other food banks. It is similar to doing click and collect at a grocery store. Roles like greeting people in our parking lot, checking clients in, walking them through the hamper building process, building those hampers and running the food out to their cars are all typically performed by our amazing volunteers. For the purpose of our Christmas Eve celebration, we had staff do these jobs instead.  

This gave those of us that sit behind a desk, a chance to roll up our sleeves and have face to face interactions with the folks who access our services, an experience that is so valuable in this line of work and one that allows us to move through our day to day with even greater empathy.  

Walking around our distribution centre and actually building the hampers created great sense of pride, especially as we loaded up a cart with lots of healthy fresh fruits and vegetables, flour, cooking oil, meat, dairy and more. The carts we were filling didn’t look any different than ones you would spot at your local grocery store.  

Overall, Operation Holiday Cheer was an overwhelming success amongst our team. There are talks of a part 2 taking place next year.