LFB saw holidays as a rewarding opportunity

By Lethbridge Herald on January 7, 2026.

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Lethbridge Herald

For the Lethbridge Food Bank, the Christmas holidays meant lots of community events and opportunities to gather donations for families and individuals in need, and because of it they were able to help many celebrate the holidays with food on their table.

Executive administrator Emily Beilby said Christmas was busy, but it was very rewarding to see how the community  supported the families they serve during the Christmas holidays.

“We have many events that take place throughout Christmas, the GMC lube oil fill brought us $15,000 that we share with Interfaith Food Bank. We took part in the Hurricanes Teddy bear toss and we helped distribute those to agencies that need them,” said Beilby.

She said the CKPC Holiday Train event which brought them just under $20,000 between food donations, monetary donations and a CPKC donation of $8,000. Beilby added that this helped them feed hundreds of people during the holidays.

“We did over 950 hampers just for December which worked out to be over 1600 adults for that month. And we had increased donations for non-perishable foods, increased monetary donations, and this has put in a strong position for the beginning of 2026,” said Beilby.

She said their Christmas hampers were slightly adapted from their usual hampers that are distributed from January to November.

“Our families receive extra items in their December hampers. We try to help make their Christmas memorable, full of food and take the pressure and stress off a lot of families,” said Beilby.

She explained that their Christmas hampers included turkeys, chickens, or hams according to the individual or family preferences and all the trimmings.

“In 2025 we did just over 100 more hampers than 2024. We had over 1,000 hours of volunteering through December in the food bank alone without any events,” said Beilby.

She said during December they had days where there was a significant increase, for instance, on Sundays they were doing upwards of 150 hampers, whereas their usual busy days they would be doing 100 to 110 hampers per day.

“The community really stepped up. And we hope they continue to do so, so we can continue to feed the families that need us throughout the year,” said Beilby.