BARRHEAD - Food bank usage in Barrhead continues to be high.
Since January, the Barrhead and District Family Community Support Services (FCSS) food bank has served 555 clients, executive director Karen Pronishen told County of Barrhead councillors during their Oct. 1 meeting.
Of those clients, 122 were first-time clients that have never accessed the food bank, she said, adding that in total, the food bank assisted 237 households.
Pronishen visited council to update them on the not-for-profit society's activities and introduce program coordinator Leah Jackson and program assistant Pamela Griffiths.
She added of the 237 households who accessed the food bank over the last eight months, 173 were renting private accommodations, seven were in social housing, 24 owned their residence, nine were staying with family or friends, four were unhoused, and 14 they did not have information for.
Pronishen said the FCSS family programs, provided through the Family Resource Network (FRN), continue to be well-utilized by the community.
From January to August, the FRN served 1,994 adults and 2,712 children.
The FCSS also served upwards of 4,000 youth through various programming, some of the most popular being Chill Zone, which provides kids from Grades 4 to Grade 9 a safe place to be themselves, try new experiences and build natural supports within their peers, Art Club and Hereos, a social and emotional skill building program to help build resilience, and the All-Nighter. The latter is an annual program hosted between Barrhead and Westlock FCSSes, where students from Grades 7 to 12 stay up all night and participate in activities such as bowling, swimming, and archery-tag, among many others.
Pronishen said the FCSS plans to introduce two new programs in the coming weeks.
The first, Tot Time, replaces the FRN's Parents and Tots.
"It will have monthly themes with more precise tasks in building caregiver capacity through intentional interactive play, opportunities and topics," she said.
The other new program, a Thursday Dungeons and Dragons game night, targets youth.
The unique thing about it, Pronishen said, is that all the storylines are targeted based on the Family Resource Network's outcomes with a high focus on youth leadership building.
She added that FRN staff have helped parents fill out 38 Ages and Stages questionnaires, most of which have been through referrals from local medical professionals. This developmental screening tool pinpoints developmental progress in children between one month and five and a half years.
Pronishen added that the FCSS community support coordinator Vernice Aitken has also been active for eight months, seeing 290 clients, including 147 for the first time.
"One of the things Vernice has been seeing more of since January is domestic violence and homelessness," she said.
Pronishen added one of the things FCSS is doing to help combat the housing insecure issues in the community is to form a working committee with other community organizations and agencies other organizations and agencies to see what they are doing to address the social needs of individuals who are either homeless or at risk of homelessness.
She noted this is in addition to the Alberta Provincial Housing and Service Needs Estimation survey they completed last year.
The survey was part of a larger project by the Alberta Rural Development Network (ARDN) to determine the extent of homelessness in 21 rural communities across the province. The survey was conducted locally by FCSS, Ripple Connection Support Services (RCSS), and the Barrhead and District Social Housing Association (BDSHA).
The ARDN is a not-for-profit organization created in 2009 by partnering with the province's 21 public post-secondary institutions. Its mandate is to support rural sustainability through a wide variety of initiatives.
