35+ Years of Food Banking
Planting Roots, Growing Community
Interfaith Food Bank is the offspring of a service which had its beginnings in Our Lady of the Assumption Church. Requests for food and assistance were coming not only from people in the parish, but from all areas of Lethbridge and district. The food bank outgrew its quarters in the Assumption Church and moved to the basement of the Catholic Charities Clothes Bank, taking the name of Catholic Charities Food Bank.
In October 1989, Catholic Charities Food Bank moved to share a vacant space in a City of Lethbridge building occupied by the Lethbridge Soup Kitchen. However, in 1990, the food bank moved to 1102 3rd Avenue North as the space they’d been sharing was torn down to make way for the new Lethbridge Family Services building.
As support was coming from the majority of churches in the community, the name of the organization was changed to Interfaith Food Bank Society of Lethbridge. The society was both a provincially registered non-profit society and nationally registered charitable organization when its growth necessitated another move in 1993 to 1116 3rd Avenue North. Having first occupied the most eastern bay of the building, by 2005 Interfaith was operating out of the entire facility and had introduced The Interfaith Chinook Country Kitchen, a community kitchen program that teaches participants how to cook healthy meals on a limited budget.
With further growth, it had become evident that the society was in need of a building of its own. By September 2010, Interfaith took possession of a more ideal facility directly across the street, 1103 3rd Avenue North. Immediate construction began to get the building ready for food distribution which commenced from the new facility just two months later. Phase 2 renovations were completed in early 2013, and classes resumed at The Interfaith Chinook Country Kitchen, now settled in their newly finished kitchen and childcare suite.
March of 2013 Interfaith received a grant allowing the establishment of Interfaith Learning Garden, which would provide fresh produce for the cooking classes, and opportunities for garden education. This was the final phase of the Planting Roots, Growing Community capital campaign.
In June 2013, Interfaith’s dedication to excellence was recognized on a national stage when Food Banks Canada awarded the organization the Excellence in Food Banking Award as the top medium-sized food bank in Canada.
The years that followed brought continued growth and innovation. In 2014, a provincial grant of $75,000 enabled the launch of Project Protein, a pilot initiative sourcing livestock from Alberta’s agriculture industry to be processed into ground protein for food bank clients — ultimately delivering over 39,000 pounds of ground beef to food bank families. New kitchen programs expanded as well, with classes designed for children and caregivers, and the Learning Garden became a hub for hands-on food education.
As demand grew — particularly during the economic downturn of 2016, which saw up to 30% more people requiring services each month — Interfaith continued to adapt. In 2017, the organization announced the Building Possibilities capital project, a plan to expand into the front half of the facility to better serve the community. By July 2020, Phase 3 of that project was complete, nearly tripling the space available for client services and adding a Client Advocacy and Resource Room along with three new classrooms for outreach programs.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges beginning in 2020, but Interfaith was designated an Essential Service and kept its doors open throughout. Staff, volunteers, and the broader community rallied together, and the organization emerged with new programs, stronger community partnerships, and hard-won resilience.
In September 2022, Interfaith opened the Ih’taapiinii’mopa inn’siimaan (Healing Garden), a space dedicated to Truth and Reconciliation and the traditional plant knowledge of the Blackfoot people. The following year, the organization was honoured with the City of Lethbridge’s Reconciliation Champion Award.
Growth in need has continued to outpace even the most ambitious projections. By 2023, Interfaith was distributing an average of 850 hampers per month — to over 2,000 individuals — and crossed a historic milestone of handling over 1,000,000 pounds of food in a single year. That same year, Charity Intelligence recognized Interfaith as a Top 10 Impact Food Bank for the third consecutive year.
In July 2024, Interfaith Food Bank celebrated 35 years of service to the Lethbridge community — a testament to what can be accomplished when neighbours choose to look after one another.
Today, Interfaith Food Bank distributes more than 1,880,000 million pounds of food and nearly 11,000 hampers each year, remaining a leader in the fight against food insecurity in our community.