Edmonton's Food Bank, cultural organizations hit hard by Heritage Festival closure

Edmonton's Food Bank is in need of donations after one of its biggest fundraising opportunities, the Edmonton Heritage Festival, ended early over the weekend.

The festival, which usually runs Saturday to Monday of the August long weekend, was not able to operate on Monday after a storm on Sunday night damaged festival infrastructure.

Festival organizer Bruce Hogle says site crews stayed until 2 a.m. on Monday trying to keep the site secure during the storm.

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"It was just too much for them to keep up with and they actually deemed it unsafe for them to be on site and be under the tents with the weight of the water, because some of the structures had started to collapse," Hogle told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday.

"We had the crew back at 5 a.m. just to see what they could do to salvage the festival.

"When they peeked into a lot of the tents, there were structural damages with bent supports and posts in there that would deem it really unsafe to be under."

Hogle said organizers were especially cognizant of the structural safety of the tents after a tent collapse near Westlock, Alta. killed one person last week.

"We wanted to make sure we didn't have any incidents like that. Safety here is one of our biggest priorities."

The loss of the third day of the festival means fewer donations were collected for Edmonton's Food Bank.

"This fundraiser and food drive is key for us over the summer as we try to build up some stocks leading into the fall, and we know that people are going to feel the pinch when school's back," Tamisan Bencz-Knight of Edmonton's Food Bank told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday.

"We're serving record numbers of people monthly, and the fact that 1,700 new clients monthly are signing up and needing our support, that means that people are really feeling the pinch."

Bencz-Knight says the food bank is accepting donations for the Heritage Festival food drive this week.

"We actually collect at all major grocery stores, fire halls, as well as online donations up until Friday afternoon for this food drive. So we're asking anybody who can give, please give."

The food bank isn't the only organization feeling the pinch as a result of the festival shutdown.

The cultural organizations that hold pavilions at Edmonton Heritage Festival also use the festival as a fundraising opportunity.

"All of the pavilions in here are non-profit groups as well, and they use this fundraising in here for programming for dance schools, senior centres and other things, so the emotions were high," Hogle said.

Hogle said the festival will also be hit hard by the lost day.

"It would be about a third of our sales. And I'm not going to disclose the numbers, but it is quite a significant number."

The festival has placed a "donate" button on its website in hopes of making up some of the lost income.

"We want to make sure we have a festival next year. We want to come back stronger than ever."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nav Sangha