The Foothills Salvation Army was recently gifted a wonderful donation of $3,120.45 from High River's Sobeys. The donation came in from gift cards from an in-house promotion.

Shiela MacDonald, Community and Family Service Manager for Foothills Salvation Army, was grateful for the kindness Sobeys was able to share with them.

"(Jason McCauley, owner of High River Sobeys) actually just emailed us that they have a nice prize for us, because they have this in-house promotion. They have gathered $3,120.45 worth of gift cards for us. They have asked us if we could go to the store and claim it and have a photo with them," MacDonald said.

"We have been so grateful because we didn't expect this. We have been getting donations from them three times a week."

Last year, Sobeys donated a total of 12,753 lbs of food and bread to Foothills Salvation Army. They also portioned 3,000 lbs of Cargill meat to the Salvation Army.

"Those little food hampers that they ask the customers to buy for the Food Bank are actually going to us. The meat donation that we get from Cargill they graciously portion and repackage all of that to us because it comes into big packages, so they portion it for us for free in 2023," she said.

"Jason and Karen have been very awesome when it comes to the community because I know we are not the only charity that they help, they help a lot of charities around town."

MacDonald explained why getting help from places like Sobeys is so important in helping Foothills Salvation Army and the people that they serve.

"Especially right now with all the Food Banks around Canada, there is a 32 per cent increase of the client's intake that we are having," MacDonald said.

MacDonald said from 2022 compared to 2023 statistics show that their store has had a 62 per cent increase in client intake.  

"We appreciate all the support that we can get from our communities. It's not only Sobeys that are helping us, but also No Frills and Cobbs giving out rescued food from them. Even the individuals from the community have been a great help and without them, we won't be able to support our community. Everything we do is because of them and there wouldn't be us without them," she said.

For those wanting to help with donations, the Salvation Army is asking for big bags of rice, as well as other household items like toothbrushes and shampoo.