A local woman is pulling from her life experiences to give back to the community in a big way and is the CTV Calgary Inspiring Albertan this week.
Pamela King is no stranger to the Calgary Food Bank and volunteers in a variety of ways.
It all started when she left an abusive relationship and had to apply for social assistance.
The hand up provided money for rent and utilities but there wasn't enough for food.
“It wasn't an easy thing for me to do, to swallow my pride to be able to ask for help and say, I need to be able to provide for my kids, how can I do that? So I was very, very grateful, I was pointed in the direction of some of the resources that are available to Calgarians,” said King.
Once she was settled and able to feed her children, she began volunteering at their school.
Now she is giving back to the community as the Calgary Board of Education Trustee for Wards five and ten.
“I’m incredibly proud to be a trustee for the Calgary Board of Education and to be able to give back to my community in that way,” said King.
D.D. Coutts is Manager of Communications and Development at the Food Bank and says King is an inspiration.
“She also decided to transcend that and to become a leader in the community and to continue to advocate for children who may not have enough food, for families who need that extra support and extra help, to help them to understand that it is okay to ask for help,” said Coutts.
Coutts says it took courage to do what King did. “A lot of people think that it's a weakness to ask for help but Pamela recognized this was something that she actually needed to do to help her family to move forward.”
“Through this experience and being able to talk about the great benefits of the food bank in my own personal story I discovered that my youngest son had no idea that we had even been accessing the food bank but he's been a volunteer at the food bank, separate and above from that, through school for the leadership program,” said King.
For doing what she needed to do in order to feed her family and for the way she's giving back to the community, Pamela King is our Inspiring Albertan this week.
