The world is a different place then it was just a few months ago but the heart and dedication of Cochranites hasn't changed. 

The amount of food and monetary donations made to the local food bank during these difficult months has food bank officials saying thank you. 

Cochrane Food Bank Chairperson Kathy Tucker says the food bank has been a bustling place lately, to say the least.

"Very very busy at the food bank from developing some sort of protocol for COVID when it hit, to basically closing our doors so no one can come in anymore, but we're still providing the service at the level of service that we were providing, pre COVID."

Tucker says they very quickly changed courses and began delivering food hampers to help limit the amount of people in and around the food bank. 

"We partnered up with FCSS and the Town of Cochrane. We currently have volunteers through those associations that are our drivers and they deliver hampers to anyone who calls in needing a hamper, and it's been working out really well."

She says they started taking the bulk of their donations at The Clothesline. 

"We had The Clothesline help us out with a donation drop off place for us during these last seven weeks. They were closed of course because of COVID so they offered to set up a sorting and drop off station at The Clothesline."

The Clothesline is now open to the public again.

Tucker says they had to cancel their spring food drive but Cochranites stepped up to help keep their shelves stocked. 

"We are overwhelmed with gratitude right now, they have done these mini food drives and there's been many. From the RCMP doing their drive throughs in the community for birthdays and whatnot. We've had four or five truckloads of food from them."

She says they've also received donations from food drives done by local groups including the Cochrane Jeepers Club, and there's a few coming up from the GlenEagles Community Association as well as Westlife church in Springbank. 

Tucker says they're looking towards September right now when they'd usually do their fall food drive but they don't anticipate they'll be able to run it. 

"With the way the Government is phasing things in it probably won't fall into the category of something people can do. We had 800 volunteers that would come out and help with our food drive and there's no way that we can do anything of that magnitude."

She says the need for food hampers per week has increased. 

"We do on average about 40-50 hampers a week right now and pre COVID we would do 25-30. So the numbers aren't huge yet but, it sort of ebbs and flows."

Tucker anticipates the need to increase over the next while. 

"We know that this is not something that is just going to go away. We have to be in this for the long haul. Things are going to get really tough for people in the next period of time and we're preparing for that right now."

For more information or how to get in contact with the food bank go here.