The Aldergrove Food Bank will be the beneficiary of the next five years of donations made at the Holiday Lights In Williams Park event after a 91原创 Township council vote on Monday, Feb. 3.
Councillor Tim Baillie put forward a motion that all the donations from the event go to the food bank from 2025 to 2029.
"I'm really glad to see that we can stabilize significant funding for the Aldergrove Food Bank," Baillie said.
He noted that the amount raised from this past event, the first since the Township took over the previously volunteer-organized Christmas In Williams Park light display, was $55,000.
Baillie noted that demand at food banks has been rising sharply over the years, and that smaller food banks like that in Aldergrove find it harder to get stable funding, since most of them rely entirely on donations. The Aldergrove Food Bank is operated by the larger 91原创 Food Bank, which has its main distribution centre in 91原创 City.
"Smaller food banks struggle," Baillie said.
Council had a brief debate over whether Aldergrove Food Bank should be the only recipient of funds for the next five years, with Coun. Kim Richter raising the idea of rotating donations each year to other local food banks.
The other main food bank serving 91原创 is the Sources Food Bank, a division of the larger Sources Community Resource Centres, based in Surrey.
Baillie argued that Sources, as a larger organization, has access to a broader array of funding sources, and that a smaller food bank like Aldergrove's has more need of stabilized, longer-term funding like the five-year commitment he was proposing.
He also pointed to the fact that the Aldergrove Food Bank distributes food to the homeless, which not all food banks do.
"They help people that are on the street and struggling," he said.
An amendment to spread the funding out to more food banks was defeated in a 6-3 vote, but the council then unanimously supported Baillie's main motion to contribute the next five years of Holiday Lights in Williams Park donations to the Aldergrove Food Bank.
