Red Deer’s Mustard Seed is preparing for another school year of slinging sandwiches for students in need throughout Central Alberta this week. However, the Seed has been helping families throughout the summer as well. 

“We do offer support to all the families that we help in the school lunch program during the summer time. We do some hampers and some fresh products for lunches as well and just other types of advocacy and support for vulnerable families. We have been helping a lot of families throughout the summer across seven different central Alberta communities, “said Byron Bradley Managing Director of Red Deer’s Mustard Seed

This year, Bradley is expecting the Mustard Seed to serve 500 school lunches every day in 48 schools across seven communities. In order to kick off the school year right, the Mustard Seed is looking for volunteers to help make baked goods for student lunches. The Seed isn’t always able to put freshly baked goods in school lunches but loves to include that personal touch when they can.  

“We love it best when people are able to when they have the time, not everybody does. When people have the time to come into our kitchen to bake the goodies, we love when we're able to add that to the to the lunch and every kid gets a freshly made sandwich on a fresh whole wheat bun,” said  Bradley. 

In addition to sandwiches and baked goods, student lunches might also include fresh fruit and vegetables.

The shelter has been back to normal operations since the province lifted COVID-19 restrictions but has continued to be busy throughout the pandemic. 

“We don't have any restrictions right now due to COVID. For the first while, we had to stop volunteerism back when COVID started. Then, we were actually able to have them on reduced capacity. We were still able to bring volunteers in because we are an essential service provider. We continued operation throughout like 90% of the pandemic,” said Bradley. 

Earlier this summer, the Mustard Seed put out a call for water bottles in the midst of the heat wave and Bradley said  they received an incredible response. Although Bradley says the Mustard Seed won’t be in need of water for some time, they would be happy to accept fresh or frozen meat including beef, chicken, and pork. The Mustard Seed feeds 125 of Central Alberta’s most vulnerable three times a week for dinner. 

Another item that would be helpful is men and women’s underwear of all sizes. 

“We're always looking for men's and women's underwear of all sizes… For some reason we get a lot more socks then we get underwear, so we're often looking for men and women underwear of all sizes,” added Bradley. 

Another fun way of getting involved with the Mustard Seed is participating in their next fundraiser, the 2nd annual Amazing (Car) Race. That scavenger hunt themed event will be offered on September 18, 2021, for more information on that, you can click here. 

The Mustard Seed has just celebrated serving the community of Red Deer and area for five years. Bradley says he is very proud of the work the organization has been doing with community over the years. 

"It's pretty cool when you put all the numbers together. We've done over half a million meals, we have had volunteers from across the region who have donated over 41,000 volunteer hours. Over 13,000 people has have been cared for through our Health and Wellness Center either by a doctor, counselor, or nurse. I think it's 2,800 people have been to a spiritual care event. When you put all those numbers together over five years, it's pretty amazing just to see the impact. We could have only have done all of that with the generosity of the the whole community across central Alberta," added Bradley.