We sure do. We have different neighbourhoods down in what we call our River Flats area that have extensive poverty.
Often the programs are done in the schools. We talked about our community service workers program, where the municipality actually funds community service workers within the school. Those workers are able to work with students and families. They do everything from taking a family to income support and supporting them through the process to creating social change within the school.
We also provide a brown bag lunch program through the food bank. We provide 500 to 700 sandwiches per day in Medicine Hat and the surrounding area. We also work with those schools to try to do some innovation. We did a “food first” pilot project with families, where they were able to access extra services that we'll tell you all about at the food bank, but certainly there are pockets and areas where we do provide that.
Overall though, I would say that Medicine Hat is diverse throughout the entire community, so we see poverty pockets throughout the entire community.