Feeding Banff Together

Thank you. Before anything else, that's what we want to say. It is a privilege to serve this community every week, and being in The Pines Hall on Monday nights is one of our great joys. We rarely close. In fact, the only times we have closed this year were to celebrate our volunteers, which tells you something about how much they mean to us.

Speaking of which: we are blessed with a dedicated volunteer crew, and we're always looking for more hands to join them. The same goes for our culinary team. A special shout out to Chef Souvik and Chef Ahmed, who have carried the bulk of our Mondays this year. We're so grateful for them, and if you're a chef who'd like to join the team, we'd love to hear from you.

Now, here's a look at where things stand and where you fit in.

What does it cost to feed a room?

Every Monday night, The Pines Hall at St. George's fills with neighbours, workers, families, and friends sharing a free hot meal. This year alone, Banff Food & Friends has served 6,723 meals. Behind every one of those plates is a simple bit of math we want to share with you.

• Each meal costs about $7.15 to put on the table. That covers food, our chef, and the space.
• Donations bring in about $2 per meal on average.
• The rest, roughly $5 a plate, comes out of our reserves.
• Summer Mondays mean about 200 meals. When the cold sets in, that doubles to 400.

Grants and generous donors have carried us this far, and we're deeply grateful. But grant funding for the year is behind us, and the busiest months are ahead. So we want to tell you about two ways people are already stepping up, because they might spark something for you.

A birthday that fed a village

Earlier this season, a Bow Valley local celebrated her 60th birthday. Instead of gifts, she asked her guests to give to Banff Food & Friends, and set a goal of $4,000. She reached it. That one birthday covered about two full weeks of winter dinners.

She asked us for help, and we made it easy. We set up a CanadaHelps landing page just for her celebration, printed flyers with QR codes, and she did the rest. If you have a birthday, anniversary, retirement, or milestone coming up, we would love to do the same for you. You bring the occasion. We'll bring everything else.

Become a Rock Star Dinner sponsor

Some of our best Monday nights are powered by local businesses and groups who take on a whole dinner. It happens in different ways. Some cover the cost of the meal, food and chef included. Some cook the food themselves and bring it to us to serve. Some go all in: they cook, they cover the costs, and they bring their own team to serve it up. However you do it, sponsoring a dinner means a full room eats well because of you.

One sponsored winter dinner is 400 people eating well, all in one night.

If your business, team, or family wants to take on a night this fall or winter, reply to this email or reach out at foodandfriends@stgeorgebanff.com. We'll walk you through it and make it simple.

Thank you to our sponsors

None of this happens alone. We are carried by a community of local stakeholders whose generosity keeps this table set week after week.

• The Pauw Foundation
• The Town of Banff
• The Banff-Canmore Foundation
• The Myron & Catherine Tetreault Foundation
• Pursuit Banff Jasper Collection
• Arctos & Bird
• Banff Food Rescue
• Defending Awesome
• Bow Valley Mental Health
• Banff Fire Rescue
• St. George-in-the-Pines Anglican Church

This table belongs to all of us. Thank you for helping us keep it set.