Summer 2023 Comfort Food

Meet Rodney, a medical school student and call center volunteer! Since childhood, Rodney’s passion has been helping people. Moving from Nigeria to Canada 4 years ago, he joined the Calgary Food Bank as a volunteer 1 year ago. We’re grateful for Rodney’s kind heart and dedication to our community.

The Calgary Stampede is behind us now, but wasn’t that a party?! We are still counting, but over $221 thousand was raised over the course of the 10 days. It was one heckuva ride from Stampede Breakfasts to community Barbecues to arranging pickups and drop-offs from 3rd party fundraisers. Thank you, Calgary for your incredible support! See our fun wrap-up video.

Homeless Cars

The Calgary Food Bank has a brand-new partnership with a new organization to our city: Homeless Cars. We sat down with the Director of Operations and Communications, Gillian Speziali to learn more.  

What is Homeless Cars?

A vehicle donation charity that really prides itself on keeping donations local.

How long have you been operating in Alberta?

We came to Calgary at the beginning of 2023, and started up in Edmonton shortly after

How do I donate my vehicle?

It’s really simple. Call 1-833-465-7227 and an agent will walk you through the donation during a 5–10-minute phone call. You only need the vehicle information (year, make, model, kilometers & condition) and your personal information for your tax receipt.

What’s next?

We will schedule a pickup time Monday through Saturday. On the day of pickup, our tow driver will call when they are approximately a ½ hour away. You provide keys and sign the bill of sale with the tow driver upon arrival.  

How will I know the value of my vehicle?

We guarantee a tax receipt in the amount of at least $800 as long as the vehicle is inclusive of all its major parts.  If the vehicle ends up selling for more than the guaranteed minimum, your tax receipt will be adjusted to reflect the value of the vehicle.

How does your charity work from other, similar models?

Before Homeless Cars began, our founder realized that despite having access to many vehicle donation charities, Canadians didn’t have an option that kept the funds raised from their vehicle donation in the community the vehicle was donated in. This is how Homeless Cars came to be; from a desire to see funds raised in the community support people experiencing homelessness and food insecurity in the same area.

In other words, Calgarians who choose to donate their cars through Homeless Cars know that their donation will directly support local organizations such as the Calgary Food Bank. Donate A Car — Homeless Cars 

So many rolled up their sleeves and worked harder than ever to increase capacity to clear the backlog of demand we saw in the late winter and spring.   

Not everyone loves stats, and at times they can be dizzying, but the hard truth is the number of people we are serving is staggering:   

In June 2023, we distributed over 14,000 Emergency Food Hampers which is a 47% increase compared to June 2022. The number of lives affected also increased by 47% to a staggering 38,170. 

Comparing the first 6 months of 2023, we distributed over 74,000 Emergency Food Hampers which is a 30% increase in the number of hampers distributed in the first half of 2022.   

This can be largely attributed to the increase in demand, as well as the increase in our capacity since May, to bring the wait times down.   

Our summer months are typically our slowest months, as people have access to more fresh produce and seasonal work is plentiful. Stampede in particular is typically our slowest week as there are a lot of pancake breakfasts and community barbecues. But what we have seen this year is not reflective of what our historic data has shown, in those previous years where Stampede Week would be one of our slowest weeks, it was our busiest week so far this year.   

Thanks to the incredible support from our community, Stampede Week yielded an amazing amount of food and funds donated. We are at $221,268.03 and counting! To all who contribute time, food and funds, we thank you so very much. Only together can we fight hunger and its root causes.