Local youth have been hard at work this fall supporting the Okotoks Food Bank.

The food bank has received donations from Good Shepard School, Foothills Composite High School, Holy Trinity Academy, Ecole Beausoleil, as well as Westmount School.

The schools were inspired by the nation-wide program Me to We which teaches youth about community involvement and thinking about others aside from themselves.

Sheila Hughes, executive director of the food bank, says the donations rival what they were given by the schools at Christmas last year.

"We will be doing the whole weight of each donation, we're just not even through all of them yet, that's how big it was. It took us quite a while so we can fit them in places so we can slowly work through them and sort and stock everything," she says.

Hughes says thanks to generosity of the schools, the food banks shelves are topped up heading into Christmas.

"Our Christmas rush each year is really quite unbelievable so having this done ahead of time helps free us up for other food drives that are being done and also with our adopt a family program and putting our Christmas hampers together."

People can still get involved on Saturday between 9 a.m. and noon at John Paul II Collegiate where they'll be trying to fill a bus with donations for the food bank.

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