The High River/United Way partnership is handing out $50,000 to seven community groups.

A good chunk of the money, according to Mayor Craig Snodgrass, is going to groups that help families, and especially children, with food insecurity.

"It's an unfortunate thing but a definite reality that there's a portion of the kids in our town that go to school without a lunch, and sometimes other parts of the day as well so a lot of the money will be going to the food security programs," he says.

"It's unfortunate that it's a need but it's great that we have the United Way and our FCSS (Family and Community Support Services) department that works together to make sure that the money that we have goes to the right entities to take care of these kids."

Mayor Snodgrass says the United Way wasn't able to meet all the needs it was presented with.

"They lost a couple of primary fundraising events over the last couple of years which resulted in about a $10,000 reduction in their available funding, so they ended up with about $60,000 in asks and only $50,000 in money available to hand out."

He says the Celebrity Server has been a lot of fun in the past and he'd like to see it return.

Here is the list of recipients:

  • $10,000 to the BGC Foothills Club (formally: Boys and Girls Club of the Foothills)
  • $1,880 to Foothills Community Immigrant Services
  • $7,000 to Inclusion Foothills
  • $10,000 to High River Food for Thought
  • $7,500 to Wild Rose Community Connections
  • $1,800 to the High River Performing Arts Foundation
  • $11,820 to No Student Goes Hungry Program

auction