Fill The Truck! Fill the Cupboards!
Generous residents are heeding the call and filling it all for the Chemainus Harvest House Society Food Bank.
The shelves at the Harvest House locations in the Chemainus United Church and Warmland Community Church in Crofton are nicely filled at the crucial time right before Christmas to meet all the needs of community members.
The annual Fill The Truck event at the Chemainus 49th Parallel Grocery was another huge success with more than 1,600 pounds of food donated, primarily from pre-packaged bags sold at the store, plus another $3,109.35 from donations, according to manager Paul McGregor.
McGregor had his whole masked family there helping out, as well as many others from the store and the community.
“We all have big smiles on our faces, you just can’t see them,” noted Tina McGregor. “It was a great event. What a wonderful and generous community Chemainus is.”
The funds, food and assorted other donations have been pouring in from everywhere and Harvest House chair Jan Aikman couldn’t be more thrilled.
“It’s been a really rough year for a lot of people,” she said.
“The people have been so supportive in our community and the provincial and federal government through Food Banks Canada and Food Banks B.C.
“It looks really good – full shelves. We’ve very blessed.”
Cori McCaw from Toys, Toiletries & Toques dropped off $1,775 worth of gift cards from local businesses that will be shared among clients this Christmas. Jones Marine Group made a $6,560 donation, Mid-Island Co-Op contributed another $1,000, the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 191 donated $2,000, the Chemainus Health Care Centre Auxiliary $1,000, Thetis Island Community dropped off more than 200 pounds of food and the list goes on and on.
Harvest House also received a portion from the Juice FM Stuff The Truck event in Duncan in partnership with Save-On Foods that was an amazing success.
There’s a great dedicated team behind the scenes doing its part to sort and distribute everything from the basement of the Chemainus United Church while maintaining social distancing requirements.
“We’re still here every day stocking our shelves and giving the people as much as they can take away,” said Aikman.
On one particularly busy day last week, about 240 pounds of food was delivered. “We put our heads down, sorted it and got it on the shelves,” noted Aikman.
“I’m very lucky, my volunteers are the same people that are coming every week.”
Harvest House started giving out Christmas cards with vouchers in them Friday and once more this week for clients in Chemainus as well as during the last two Mondays before Christmas for those in Crofton.
Harvest House has a new letter slot at the food bank where envelope donations can be dropped off any time when it’s convenient.
