Regina Food Bank steps up in response to influx of wildfire evacuees

As northern Saskatchewan wildfires force thousands from their homes, the Regina and District Food Bank is working overtime offering food, play space and a sense of community to evacuees.

“We have a lot of new individuals across the province in Regina who, of course, haven’t chosen to be here,” said John Bailey, food bank CEO.

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Bailey said about 1,000 evacuees are currently registered and staying in hotels or other supported housing in the city.

“We’re making sure they have access to the basketball court and the play structure at the Asahtowikamik Food Hub, so they have something for the kids to do. We try to act as connectors to other events, to give some sense of normalcy and break the monotony of being away for home.”

But many evacuees arriving now aren’t formally registered, and are staying with friends or family.

“We’re actually starting to see them come to our door,” he said. “We want to make sure while they’re in our community, they are our neighbours. And we want to make sure they’re fed.”

What’s unusual, Bailey said, is how early this is happening.

“It’s not uncommon to see. What’s uncommon is it starting so early. To have people start trickling in in June is a little bit of a worrying sign (for) the rest summer,” he said. “Because, quite frankly, from the looks of things folks are not going to be going home anytime soon.”

Meanwhile, the food bank is facing its own challenges, with supply chain issues and fluctuating tariffs threatening affordable food access.

“One that comes to mind is aluminum, where we have a company that gives us an incredible rate on cans of soup, which is Campbell’s,” he said.

“Now they haven’t told us the price is going to go up, but they’re saying … we can no longer guarantee pricing, which means we now have to change our approach.”

While donations typically dip during the summer, Bailey said demand isn’t going anywhere.

“This time of year, we start to see a little bit of a decline in donations … but we’re not seeing any sort of slowdown on demand,” he said.

“We’re going to have passed the 220,000 points of service threshold. Last year, we were just over 200,000.”

Despite an increase in volunteers hours over the past year to reach the highest in eight years, the food bank still needs more helping hands, Bailey said.

“For us to be where we want to be, we probably still need to add several dozen volunteers on a regular basis, or several hundred over the course of the year.”

And as wildfires continues to displace families, Bailey said one things is clear: “We want to make sure we’re there to support them.”

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