The Salvation Army’s Christmas Hamper distribution week has wrapped up, successfully delivering hundreds of packages to families in need this holiday season.  

Over 320 families were registered to receive this year, showing the extent of food insecurity in the southwest. The Salvation Army Food Bank in Swift Current gathered thousands of pounds of food, collaborating with multiple generous local organizations and individuals. 

Lieutenant Bill Mailman of the Salvation Army in Swift Current wanted to thank all those who donated. 

“It went really well; we had a huge support from the community as far as donations and volunteers stepped up,” Mailman said. “It ran as smoothly as we could possibly imagine, so we're really thankful to everybody who helped out... We had support from our local Hutterites from around the area. They dropped off quite a few vegetables; we had potatoes, carrots, beets and turnips to give out to people. We gave everybody a Christmas Eve pack, which had a has some stuff just for Christmas Eve. “ 

330 of these Christmas Eve packs were donated by the Swift Current Legionnaires, along with 42 pounds of food. Other notable donations would begin with Speedy Creek Yard Maintenance for collecting an incredible 1,980 pounds of food. 

To have a nice Christmas evening with popcorn and hot chocolate and some candy and things like that. We made sure every kid had a box of cereal. And just some other various items that were around and depending on the size of the family, every family got a gift card for various amounts to supplement their meal, to either purchase meats or another main. Just local grocery stores. We try to spread it out, so everybody kind of gets some of the some of the benefits of that. 

I just want to say thank you to everybody who stepped up. I know we put out a call last minute and we were overwhelmed with support. They were fantastic; we had so many people step up from various businesses around the community... We couldn't do what we do without the support of the Community, and we're just thankful for the generosity that this community always shows towards us.  

This is the last week for the organization’s annual Kettle campaign and the last two weeks of its Christmas mail-out campaign. These are the main fundraisers, which create enough capital to maintain the non-profit throughout the year.