What’s that knocking at your door?
It’s volunteers coming around for the fourth annual Emergency Services Fight Back Against Hunger Food Drive this Wednesday and Thursday evening, Sept. 17–18.
“It’s our biggest event of the year,” said Patti Larson, the manager of the Community Connections Food Bank.
The food drive has grown every year it’s taken place, with more volunteers coming out each time to help, and more food and other donations being collected.
Last year, moret than 5.3 tons of food and thousands of dollars in donations were collected by about 200 volunteers. That helped fill the shelves at the food bank until the spring.
Unfortunately though, the donations didn’t last as long as previous years because of the increased number of people using the food bank.
“Our numbers have increased and we’re trying to provide more help to people,” said Larson. “The need is still there. We haven’t gone away, we’re not going away. We still have 140-150 adults and kids coming every week.”
The food drive is still being led by Revelstoke’s emergency services personnel, but many other community groups take part. Krista Carnegie has once again taken on the monumental task of organizing all the volunteers.
Unfortunately, the drive will be without its founder, RCMP Const. Gary McLaughlin, who started the initiative in 2011. He transferred to Lumby this summer and has already started up the same initiative there.
“This is going to be an idea that’s going to take off in more and more communities,” said Larson.
