Moosomin Food Bank providing families with Christmas hampers
December 8, 2025, 11:10 am
Ashley Bochek
The Moosomin Food Bank is supporting Moosomin and surrounding communities with up to 90 hampers helping families over the holidays.
Samantha Campbell of the Moosomin Food Bank says the holidays is their busiest time of year and are looking to the community for support.
“We service Moosomin, Wapella, Rocanville, and Welwyn. We do on average lately between 70 and 80 hampers each month. We are expecting to get close to 90 for Christmas. We serve all demographics. We do emergency food hampers and monthly ones. We have a few other programs such as our backpack program that we do every Friday for the kids. We have the pet food bank, and we also monitor the community fridge out back.”
Campbell says each month the need for more food hampers grows and unfortunately items are becoming more limited.
“Every month we are adding people to our list. We have been adding anywhere between two and 10 people a month.”
Shopping model
“About a year and a half ago now we switched to the shopping model method,” says Campbell. “So, they come in and depending on their family size they are allowed so much food. They pick their own groceries, but an individual themselves used to get 12 items and then on top of those non-perishable items we would give milk, bread, eggs, and we always try to include fresh fruit.
Then, we give two to three freezer items depending on the size of the family, like a family of four would get four items, but within the last two months we had to decrease the amount people were getting just because we had so many hampers. A family of four was getting 20 items and we had to cut the number in half because our funding is down and so we really would like to get some more funding to accommodate the people that we are serving. Unfortunately, we have had to cut the amount of food back.”
Community support
Campbell explains the community’s support in helping provide 90 food hampers for families and individuals during the holidays.
“We try to make it as special to our clients as we can and try to get them a full Christmas supper. As we know, a lot of them don’t have a vehicle, they’re coming in wagons or strollers to come pick their items up, so we know that as the price of ham or turkey is upwards of $40, we know that they’re not going to be purchasing those, so we want to make sure that each person gets a turkey or ham for the holidays. This year we decided on hams because they were cheaper and then we actually saved all of the potatoes from our second harvest shipment that came so we have those, and they have been kept in a cooler spot so they will get those as well. We are including vegetables with that as well.
“Co-op is donating bag salads and boxes of oranges for us and P&H donated pancake mix, so they are able to have a breakfast in the morning. Then, the Dental Centre by IDA gave us toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss for each individual and then the Elks gave us a large amount of money and that money we used to purchase the hams for them. It is amazing.
“For Christmas, we like to give the children something extra and even the adults so with that toy drive the RCMP, firefighters, and Hutch Ambulance did, they donated all of the toys. So we had a group come and wrap them and sorted what we needed for the food bank and then we are donating the rest of the toys to Angels Anonymous so they can help as many people as they can. Then, we collected throughout the last few months brand new things that people donated to the thrift store for the adults like brand new socks or a rice cooker that we set aside and let the adults pick something if they need it.”
Campbell says the community helping gather food and toys for the holiday hampers is heartwarming.
“It feels great. You want to try to do good for your community and help as many people as you can so that is why we are doing it. It is pretty good, especially to be recognized and have people give back to us, and to be able to pay it forward is great.”
Donations needed
The Food Bank is having to cut food supply for the families and individuals they serve due to low funding.
“Monetary donations would be our biggest need just because we can make it go a lot further,” Campbell said. “We try to shop everything locally at Co-op, but it is just becoming harder and harder with the food prices. So, we can reach out to our Food Bank of Canada and try to work with them to get products at a lower cost. So monetary donations would help the most and be the biggest way people can help.
“Sometimes people fall behind and it is sometimes not necessarily what they have done, they have just hit a hard spot in their life and if we are in the position to be able to help, I think we should definitely do everything we can to try to pay it forward as much anyone humanly can,” says Campbell.
Importance of Food Bank
The Food Bank works hard at providing individuals and families within the community with support through difficult times.
“It is about giving back,” explains Campbell. “Helping as many people as we can, and trying to get them on their feet. A lot of people think the food bank is a way to supplement their groceries, so it would be nice to try to incorporate some financial classes or something along those lines. It’s not just supplementing groceries but supporting them to get back on their feet. It is a sad thing that we have to have a food bank, but it is great that we do have one just to help those in need.”
How to donate
The Moosomin Food Bank offers many ways for people to donate and help community members this holiday.
“Anyone interested in donating can drop off a cheque or cash at the thrift store or they can mail it or etransfer,” Campbell explained. “Right now, the school is doing the food drive. These big food drives really help us keep things moving along. We get large donations of food from them. I believe the Kinettes are going to do their Santa Parade which hopefully we get a few items donated through that as well. We want people to know that while we do the six months best before date, we do have the Community Fridge, so anything that is past the due date but edible, we can still put it in the Community Fridge and it does go. It is being handled very well and nothing is going to waste, which is great.”
Anyone who donates over $20 can get a tax receipt as well. E-transfers can be sent to sehas2018@sasktel.net
