Water donations urgently needed
By Lethbridge Herald on August 2, 2025.
Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald
Local agencies involved in the City Wide Water Drive that began in June, are asking for help from the community to obtain enough water bottles to last until the end of August.Â
Danielle McIntyre, executive director of the Interfaith Food Bank says she is very impressed with the outreach teams that have been making sure those who cannot escape the heat receive water to stay hydrated.Â
“We have already gone through 36,000 bottles. Our goal was to do about 10,000 litres and which is around 20,000 bottles, so we have exceeded that already,” said McIntyre.
She said the hottest part of the summer is coming up and they are going to need some help from the community for the last four weeks of the campaign.Â
“We haven’t seen the donations coming in as plentiful as previous years, and we are wondering if it is because of the nature of this summer, as it has rained a lot and we haven’t had long stretches of heat recently,” said McIntyre.Â
She thinks this might be one of the reasons why people are not seeing the urgency for donating water bottles or monetary funds to purchase water.Â
“The other thing is that we were very lucky this year to receive funding from the United Way and the City of Lethbridge to help us start off the drive, and I am wondering if people are thinking that because we received that funding, we don’t need any extra help,” said McIntyre.Â
The United Way contributed $7,000 to assist with water purchases and The City of Lethbridge, through the Community Social Development Department and Encampment Response Team, provided up to $3,000 in additional matching funding for financial and water donations collected from the community through this joint effort.
But McIntyre explained that they have already expended all donated funds for the program and that is why they are calling upon the community for support.Â
“We are encouraging the community to please donate bottled water or financial support to purchase water so we can ensure we have enough for the final four weeks of the City Wide Water Drive,” said McIntyre.Â
She added that donations can be brought to either Interfaith Food Bank or Lethbridge Food Bank or made online through either food bank website.
“Food Banks will continue to provide bottled water to outreach teams as long as supplies last, and we are counting on the community to come through
for us in these last few weeks to avoid shortages,” said McIntyre.Â
She explained that as food banks have the storage capacity and the logistics in place for facilitating community donations, distribution partners will access water from the food banks as needed throughout the summer.
Distribution partners include Outreach Teams from Community Links, Downtown Lethbridge Business Revitalization Zone, Streets Alive, Sage Clan Patrol, Diversion Outreach Team, Canadian Mental Health Association, MyCityCare, and Recovery Alberta.Â
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I rarely see any of the city’s most vulnerable, as they call them, utilizing the fresh water taps installed at Galt Gardens, which are accessible 24/7.
Could it be that they prefer the water to be delivered to them? Have we created a group who wanted everything brought to them? Non-profits deliver them food, water, drug paraphernalia, and clothing in the winter, so they don’t even have to go to the soup kitchen or food banks where they get food.
Have we now conditioned this increasing group to live on the streets and have everything given to them to do so?
In winter, we are expected to house them in hotels! Is anyone paying attention to the massive misuse of taxpayer money that continues to rise?
We are following down the same path as Vancouver DTES . . . mission creep . . . and it appears leadership is blindly following those who state ” well, every other city has it, so we have to accept it ” . . . no we don’t!
Those other cities have allowed issues to grow and are now scrambling to end those issues on their streets while we just sit back and allow them to grow!
If you are not concerned with over $14 million of your local property tax dollars annually going into countering the impacts of these bums on our streets, then don’t whine when services you want are cut, as budgets get slashed to pay for them! Don’t complain when your property taxes go up . . . again!
Many of us are tired of fighting for change, while the rest sit back and complain in coffee shops, but do nothing.
Many of us have worked hard to prevent our city from looking like Vancouver DTES and it would have without all of those dedicated people!
Vancouver DTES is only around 10,000 people, and yet there is $400 million poured into that area for social supports, housing and non-profits annually!
Is that what you want to pay in our city . . . mission creep is slowly increasing the costs! More housing, more hired police/fire/EMS, more manpower in areas such as the Outreach team who were supposed to decrease the encampments, yet there are over 100 people encamped over by the shelter, Service Canada and businesses in that area.
Take a look at all the organizations at the bottom of this news report! That is where your tax dollars are going! Most are all there because the issues on our streets!
That is what creates the need for more bottles water, which is the cheapest factor in this unacceptable lack of will to control the issues!
It is a good thing it is an election year!
You are correct calling out all of the growing number of agencies, organizations and non-profits now involved. The ones named in this article are only a small number. But you are wasting your time calling them out. The only thing they listen to is litigation.
I can understand some water is needed when the weather is extreme, but there are plenty of sources for water available now since the city added the water taps coming off of some of the hydrants.
I do agree with you about training them to live in encampments and rough sleeping, but you missed one important factor and that is by ignoring the issues they are learning how to commit crimes and live a life of criminality!
This fall the leadership is going to get a big wake-up call from some of the businesses! Perfect timing when we decide who we want on Council! The Mayor failed in his promises!
Why this keeps happening is beyond me! Why are you giving these folks everything when they are unappreciative and freely commit crimes against you? They have figured out how to manipulate you.
I am relieved that our property taxes are no longer wasted on this, because we do not have the problem in our small community. My husband and I are still trying to figure out how we can prevent our federal and provincial taxes from being blown on this. Many other nations, including Argentina, do not have an addiction epidemic, because they do not provide services for it and they have low fatal overdose rates. You will never get it!
Our family made the right decision when we relocated from the London Road neighborhood in Lethbridge to a lovely, peaceful neighborhood a few miles away. Our kids had to deal with addicts pestering them all the time after we moved to Lethbridge, and they did not feel secure accessing the downtown library for their studies, and someone broke into our shed and took our bikes. We did not regret moving after 18 months, despite the financial loss. Our property taxes support the community’s needs here, not the addicts and offenders, and we do not have to deal with providing food, clothing, water housing and other support services to addicted criminals. Our tax dollars are well spent, not burned!
We gave enough of our money for supplying everything those criminals needed to continue their addictive crime spree in the short time we lived in Lethbridge. There are taps, a shelter and a soup kitchen for water!