B.C. food bank delivers food, supplies to wildfire evacuees<\/p>\n
Published 12:07 pm Tuesday, August 18, 2026<\/p>\n
St. Joseph\u2019s Food Bank in Mission recently delivered 4,500 pounds of food and supplies to families affected by wildfires.<\/p>\n
The donation was made to the Sq\u2019\u00e9wqel (Seabird Island Band) Emergency Support Services last week, with food bank staff bringing a van full of supplies to the wildfire reception centre last Friday (Aug. 14).<\/p>\n
On behalf of the First Nation and evacuees, Sq\u2019\u00e9wqel extended gratitude to the Mission food bank on social media for their willingness to step forward when most needed.<\/p>\n
\u201c(St. Joseph\u2019s) efforts to collect and deliver food and essential supplies for those affected by the wildfires will make a meaningful difference in the lives of families facing uncertainty and displacement,\u201d the comment reads.<\/p>\n
Sq\u2019\u00e9wqel First Nation in the Agassiz area has been welcoming wildfire evacuees at the Seabird Island Wildfire Reception Centre \u2013 open daily to support evacuees with essential services, meals, lodging, health support, and registration assistance.<\/p>\n
St. Joseph\u2019s executive director Karen McDiarmid and operations manager Suzanne Rouleau both had an inkling the food bank should do something to support evacuees.<\/p>\n
After contacting Food Banks BC to see if they were coordinating anything, St. Joseph\u2019s was connected with the Sq\u2019\u00e9wqel Emergency Support Services team.<\/p>\n
St. Joseph\u2019s was provided with a list of the most-needed items and put a call out to the community for donations. The food bank team also set aside some of its weekly retail food.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided we would load up our van and we filled it to almost the maximum. I think the maximum for that van is 5,000 pounds and we hit 4,500,\u201d McDiarmid said.<\/p>\n
While dropping off the food and supplies, McDiarmid was shocked to see the number of tents for evacuees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat really hit me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She added that she was proud of the community stepping up in a time of need and emphasized the coordinated effort needed in times of emergency.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo everyone who dropped off supplies or donations \u2014 thank you. Your kindness reached people who are facing some of the hardest days of their lives,\u201d St. Joseph\u2019s said in a social media post. \u201cMany families left their homes with only minutes to spare, unsure of what they would return to. Your support brought comfort, dignity, and hope at a moment when they needed it most.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Joseph\u2019s Food Bank board chair Stephen Evans said food security agencies in the North Fraser catchment area work together and the recent events show the partnership in action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thoroughly impressed that Seabird Island continues to support the broader community by offering access to their facilities in the times of emergencies and by partnering up with St. Joseph\u2019s Food Bank on this food security initiative,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"B.C. food bank delivers food, supplies to wildfire evacuees Published 12:07 pm Tuesday, August 18, 2026 St. Joseph\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[903,49,48,163792,87674,6090],"class_list":["post-862960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}