The good people at the former United Church in Blackfalds still had a few more charitable acts to do after they closed the doors to their building in early 2018.

A dwindling number of parishioners is one of the reasons why the United Church had to close their doors and sell to the Reformed Churches of Lacombe, after originally being built as a Presbyterian church back in 1902.

The former Blackfalds United Church building, now known as the Cornerstone Free Reformed Church.

Once the church closed and sold all of their assets, they made a number of donations to local charities, but none benefited more than the Central Alberta Foodgrains committee.

Foodgrains Committee member for Central Alberta Foodgrains Doug Maas didn't know what to expect when someone from the church asked to meet with him earlier this year.

“Well I was shocked and opened the envelope and saw what the size of the cheque was. That was the largest donation we’ve ever received in terms of a cash donation, so that was outstanding.”

Maas says part of the $25,000 donated to them by the United Church committee will go directly to the main Foodgrains Bank in Winnipeg, and they will also hold some in reserve for future expenses, in case they have to rent land or equipment for their future harvests.

Trustee for the united Church Maurice Defoe said making the decision to close down the church was not something he did lightly, so he happy they were able to help out local charities with the money made.

“We were small in numbers, and we tried to keep carrying on, but the numbers weren’t there so we had to make a decision…with great misgivings and sadness, and with many impacting factors, the decision to close was made in early 2018, and the building was sold just over one year later.”  

The Central Alberta Foodgrains growing project is one of the oldest out of the more than 200 across Canada, and managed to raise $25,000 themselves from their harvest this year, which will be matched 4-1 by the federal government.