SURREY– If all goes as planned, Surrey Pastafarian Obi Canuel will be donating $45 to the Surrey Food Bank this week.

Canuel called on his fellow followers of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to come to King George SkyTrain station on Sunday morning donning their religious headgear — pasta colanders.

The Pastafarian minister said he would donate $5 to the food bank for each person who showed up wearing a colander.

Nine Pastafarians showed up to the event, including Canuel himself. He confirmed he would be donating $45, as per his promise, in the coming week.

“There was some curiousity about Pastafarian supporters and I wanted to show that all kinds of religions can do good things,” Canuel told the Now.

“Any religion can do any kind of charity.”

As for choosing the food bank, the church’s predilection towards pasta is just a “happy coincidence,” according to Canuel.

“If there were about 100 people here, it could bankrupt me,” he said at the SkyTrain station, where a few Pastafarians and a couple new converts showed up.

“I think if I had the mayor’s salary, it wouldn’t matter how many people showed up. Especially if I had a seat on the TransLink board,” he said.

Canuel unsuccessfully ran for council in November’s municipal election, in which Mayor Linda Hepner and her Surrey First team took all. At the time, Canuel said if elected, he would donate all but $20,000 of the $60,000 salary to charity.

Surrey Now