The Okotoks Food Bank recently received hundreds of pounds of donations gathered at Light Up Okotoks.

Okotoks RCMP brought back their "Cram-a-Cruiser" food drive to the event.

This was its second consecutive, and the food bank's executive director Pamela McLean was happy to see it continue past the pandemic restrictions that brought it about in the first place.

"Last year, I know people don't want to think back and remember the restrictions, but last year, Light up still had some parameters around it. Bless the RCMP, they came up with this idea of limiting interaction where if you're coming to Light Up, bring a non-perishable food and put it into the cruiser."

McLean is thrilled to see it's becoming an annual tradition.

"We are proud to say it's two years running now. Every year it's more successful and the RCMP came by the food bank, we weighed it up, and it was close to 300 pounds of food donations."

It also brought in $240 through the sale of cookbooks.

"Community support is always top-notch, and I didn't think it could go any higher, but it's phenomenal what we're seeing this year. On my watch, we've never run out of the little four-foot-high donation barrels. Now we've run out. Everyone wants to have a barrel to collect some food, they want to help."