For over 10 years the Red Deer Food Bank and the Red Deer Christmas Bureau have worked together to hold an annual fundraising campaign known as Stuff-A-Bus. People from Central Alberta are encouraged to come to the designated location and make a donation of cash, toys or non-perishable food items.

This year the Stuff-A-Bus campaign was bigger and better than ever.

“Stuff-A-Bus was huge with $43,000 in cash, literally tens of thousands of dollars in toys and food. It was wonderful and amazing,” said Fred Scaife, executive director with the Red Deer & District Food Bank.

“This is a record amount of money we have taken in this year with Stuff-A-Bus,” said Scaife.

Through the Stuff-A-Bus campaign, thousands of families will be assisted through the Christmas Bureau and thousands of people will be helped out with the Food Bank.

“There are people who, unfortunately, need a little help, and these donations show families that someone in their community cares about them. Our goal is to help as many of these people as we possibly can and make sure that nobody goes without and we have managed to accomplish that every year,” said Scaife.

“I can’t say enough good things about our partner the Red Deer Christmas Bureau. Literally they run non-stop to get as many people helped as they possibly can. We are just there to help them pick up the slack and we are going to be there from January to November next year too.”

The donations made this year to the food bank will stay predominately in Red Deer. Red Deer Food Bank does cover a 22,000 sq. km. footprint in Central Alberta.

“We cover a fairly large area through some of our programs that we run at the food bank.”

The President of the Red Deer Christmas Bureau Teresa Kutynec is also thankful for the donations made during this campaign.

“We are so very grateful for Red Deer because they are so generous.”

treid@reddeerexpress.com