After years of struggling to find enough money to operate, the Hay River Soup Kitchen – which helps feed the community's hungry – has experienced a veritable flood of financial support over the past year.
"One thing we decided is that we would look to see what kind of money was available and try to access any of that that we could," said treasurer Mattie McNeill.
That included the organization's first proposal for funding from the GNWT's Anti-Poverty Action Plan.
That proposal netted $33,500 for the 2017-2018 fiscal year.
With the anti-poverty funding, the Soup Kitchen has been able to upgrade the quality of food for its clients.
"We wanted to make the food that we were offering people more healthy," said McNeill, noting most donations of food are canned goods.
With the funding, the Soup Kitchen could offer more milk, yogurt, cheese and fresh fruits and vegetables.
"It's so nice to be able to give them something that they wouldn't normally get," said Soup Kitchen president Christopher Aitken, who noted the money was received in September.
As part of the anti-poverty proposal, the Soup Kitchen also bought two new refrigerators.
The anti-poverty funding was just the largest of a number of other financial donations to the Soup Kitchen, in addition to continuing support from Hay River residents and companies, such as the Super A and NorthMart grocery stores.
The Union of Northern Workers Local 6, with input from Local 22, provided two donations – one of $2,000 in May and another of $5,000 in August – to help with maintenance.
Among other things, the money was used to buy a barbecue.
"A lot of them they don't get that thing in their homes in the summertime," Aitken said of Soup Kitchen clients. "It was a big hit."
The union support was also used to buy a fax machine, which will help in submitting funding proposals.
The Soup Kitchen also received $2,500 from the Social Justice Committee of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
The Hay River Metis Government Council is also helping out by agreeing in December to pay $5,000 to improve the interior lighting of the Soup Kitchen.
Branch 250 of the Royal Canadian Legion also donated $1,000 in December and proceeds of its meat draws every second Saturday of each month will go to the Soup Kitchen.
In October, the Soup Kitchen also made $6,000 from its annual Taste of Soup meal and auction.
And in December, it received an annual donation of $5,000 from the Town of Hay River.
Aitken explained the increased funding is partly due to changes in the Soup Kitchen's board of directors in March.
Prior to that, Soup Kitchen manager Laura Rose was also society president.
"Laura was pretty well running the Kitchen by herself and she couldn't do it all," said Aitken, who became president in March. "There's no way she could have kept up that pace. So our board changed a little bit."
And the fundraising focus also changed.
"Rather than have little bake sales and things like that and bring in $30 or $40 to put into our account, we decided to go for the big money and that's what we did," Aitken explained, noting the Soup Kitchen is now on better financial footing.
However, he noted, despite the increased support, the Soup Kitchen board members are all retired persons, and more people are needed to volunteer with the organization.