FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU) – Throughout the year, the Fairbanks Community Food Bank (FCFB) builds emergency food boxes for those in need in the Golden Heart City, but it is doing more during the holiday season.
The food bank is continuing its mission while providing support for local nonprofits in their holiday efforts.
“During the Christmas season, we get to be a little bit more behind the scenes. We’re very much our emergency food box for our day-to-day, but we also get to assist,” Food Bank CEO Anne Weaver said.
The nonprofit provides food boxes to the Salvation Army so that they can focus on presents and casework, according to Weaver.
She said they also work with Shop with a Cop, and their food gathering goes to help churches provide for their members who may be struggling during the holidays.
Weaver said FCFB space is also given to the nonprofit Santa’s Helpers so that they can pack and distribute their own food boxes in the weeks before Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, 30 volunteers showed up to help create the emergency food boxes.
“We want to make sure that anybody who’s having some sort of emergency, is something going sideways, we want to make sure that they have food tomorrow, so we’re having our full normal emergency food box packing this morning,” Weaver said.
One volunteer, Sandra Widener, said she has been with the food bank for a couple of years.
Bagging rice for food boxes, she discussed difficulties she’s had with food security in the past.
“I went through a period of time, which I have a hard time with when I was young. In 1964, my husband died and I had three small children, seven, five, and three. There was no food bank. There was no help of any kind at all, and it was a very hard time, and when I look at the people who come to the door here and get help, it’s absolutely amazing,” Widener said.
The food bank is closed on Christmas Day, as well as the day after, but reopens on Friday so that meals can be prepared for the weekend.
More information about FCFB can be found on their website.
Volunteer signups and donations are also available online.
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