Relating to what residents in BC are going through with the wildfires, Alberta residents have joined forces to collect donations for them.

Mereille Evans, Calgary and area donation organizer, was a resident of Fort McMurray when the wildfires hit up north last year and says she knows how much donations mean.

Evans got on board with helping to organize donations through groups on Facebook who were looking to help give back.

She says support has really grown from when they first started collecting.

"It was a little bit difficult at first because the original date was to leave last Friday so there wasn't a whole lot of time to build up the word around the city and the communities that we were doing this, so it was a little bit slow at first but once word started getting out we started getting more and more and now my garage is currently about half full of donations."

Donation drop offs have been set up all over Southern Alberta including Okotoks and High River.

Evans says there's some specific items they're hoping to see donated.

"Always water, I would say probably about a quarter of the stuff we have right now is water," she explains. "I realize a lot of people were hoping to donate clothing and such but right now where we're dropping off the supplies the immediate demand is for things like cold and flu medications, allergy medications, and first aid supplies."

Items like hygiene products, diapers, wipes, baby formula, pull tab and snack type foods are also appreciated.

Loads begin to get organized Thursday with trucks leaving for Kamloops on Friday.

To learn more about the Okotoks donation drop off location click here.

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