Three teams of industry professionals and students from Red Deer Polytechnic have built eight-foot playhouses to be sold, with all the money going to the Red Deer Food Bank Society. This project in Red Deer, Alberta, gives students in the school’s trades programs practical experience while helping the community during a time of record demand for food assistance.
The food bank has seen a significant increase in use, with visits rising by about 140 per cent since 2019. In 2024, more than 30,000 people in the region received emergency food hampers. Executive director Mitch Thomson noted that about 40 per cent of those needing help are children, and the number of seniors using the service is also on the rise.
This initiative follows a similar community project from July 2025, when youth at a summer camp on the campus built potato planter boxes for the food bank. As the third largest provider of trades training in the province, the school regularly looks for ways to combine classroom learning with local charity work. The regional food bank currently supports people across a 20,000 square kilometre area in Central Alberta.
The need for food support has also grown among the students themselves. The Students’ Association of Red Deer Polytechnic, which has run its own campus food bank since 1995, reported its busiest year on record during the 2022-2023 school year. These new playhouses will provide additional funding to help manage the ongoing pressure on local food supplies.
