Cypress County promoting Go for Groceries program

By Justin Seward

Commentator/Courier

With the uptick in COVID-19 cases across the province, Cypress County is trying to increase awareness across the municipality with the Go for Groceries program.
The program was rolled out near the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and allows for the county to pick up grocery orders made by the residents online and dropped off to their homes.
How the program works is the interested participant can go to cypress.ab.ca to register or call the office at (403)526-2888, county administration then will contact that person to see if they can place or qualify for a grocery order over the internet with a grocery retailer and then the participant has to sign up for an online grocery retailer.
The shopper will have to place and prepay for the order online and then choose a pick up time slot between 8:30 a.m.- 3:30 p.m. Monday to Friday. The order will then have to be emailed to the county and administration will then pick up the order and drop off at the residents the same day.
“We’ve kept it up through the entire pandemic to make it available to our citizens,” said Jeffrey Dowling, the county’s director of municipal services.
“I don’t think it’s a bad idea to reiterate and make it public that the service is being offered by the county because under the circumstances of the rise in cases across Alberta- especially our region as well- the situation is still the same. There could be vulnerable people or elderly people that might need some assistance and don’t necessarily want to expose themselves to be in situations where they could possibly be at risk.”
Dowling says it’s the timing and coincidence that the province and Alberta Health Services have concerns about wanting to try and flatten the curve and reduce the number of cases.
“From the county’s perspective, just the fact that we recognize there are people that could benefit from the program,” he said.
Despite not having a participant in the program yet, Dowling credits the resilieny, self independence or the assistance from families or neighbours to help those who need help getting their groceries.
“For that reason, people have found other methods to get their groceries and supplies,” he said.
“We want to make it available, especially with the preventative measures that have been implemented by the province and Alberta Health Services as as of Nov. 24.”

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