TAIT: Edmonton Food Bank Continues Addressing An Unending Need

Columnists

Published Aug 05, 2023 • Last updated 3 hours ago • 2 minute read

People line up outdoors at the France pavilion People line up for the French pavilion food at the Edmonton Heritage Festival on Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023 in Edmonton. Photo by Greg Southam /Postmedia

Hunger never does, and never will, have a season.

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It growls and pains 24/7. So does the exhausted mental toughness, knowing you’re hungry and searching for your next meal.

Very early on in my journalistic journey the executive director of United Way made a most profound statement which has stuck with me like chunky peanut butter and cornmeal porridge.

“I think it’s a real shame we have a food bank in Edmonton,” said the late Hillel Boroditsky while, ironically, enjoying lunch in a downtown hotel.

But we do. And thank the Good Lord we do.

And there’s a face, a very human face, graceful and spilling over with her empathy to help make people who are hungry.

Take a bow, Marjorie Bencz.

She’ll no doubt be blushing now, because Bencz prefers the spotlight angled towards the volunteers and the donors who support the Edmonton Food Bank.

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And, of course its clients, who are, sadly, hungry.

The August long weekend is busy for Bencz and her army of supporters: the food bank has teamed up with the Edmonton Heritage Festival, making the annual three-day extravaganza into one of the food bank’s collection drives.

Bencz followed the festival north from its normal Hawrelak Park home — which is in the midst of a grass-over — to the Expo Centre.

The collection of tents from international representatives proudly sharing their ethnic food and traditions is right smack in the middle of the horse track of Northlands.

The need — Edmontonians who are hungry — is also still there.

Bencz keeps on promoting that important topic.

That, dear reader, is remarkable.

Annual charitable drives have the same need and same ask for help.

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It’s a creative marketing brainchild coming up with the same message but, somehow spinning it with a new twist, a new angle, without losing the fundamental grassroots of the ask.

Without casting an iota of blame on talented folks who are charged with parading press releases and story pitches to the media, perhaps a popular sports analogy on coaches is aptly applicable.

“They have lost the room,” is how it goes.

A coach’s message absolutely has an expiry date when it’s no longer effective.

Though I have not posed the question, it exists: do communication staffers of charities feel their creativity has run out, say, after three or four years?

Moreover, and to their credit, is there a self-awareness they feel, especially in their heart, of hitting the creative empty tank?

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In that case, the decision to resign their duties would be commendable.

Bencz is unique.

Since taking over the food bank’s executive director role in 1989, Bencz has not only been the face of the food bank, she has told its stories perhaps tens of thousands of times.

It takes talent to do so, certainly.

But it also takes a deep personal conviction, far beyond the scope of being an employee.

As a member of the Order of Canada and other prestigious decorations, others recognize her passion.

So, Boroditsky is right: shame, it is, Edmonton has a food bank.

But it’s a treasure we have Majorie Bencz at its helm.

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