Chamber of Commerce tops donation list as help floods in for food bank
By Kyra Hoggan
A flood of community support and assistance has washed over the Community Harvest Food Bank, after manager Deb McIntosh told local media the resource was in jeopardy.
McIntosh announced last week that the food bank was seeing increased demand and only had weeks left before having to close its doors, if more donations didn’t come in. Within hours, hundreds of dollars had been donated by local businesses, residents and organizations – reaching a total of $7,000 and 20 grocery bags of food in less than a week. The single largest donation, of $1,200, came from the Castlegar and District Chamber of Commerce. Chamber executive director Pam McLeod said the donation absolutely falls within the chamber mandate. “We have five subcategories underneath the chamber umbrella, one of which is community betterment. There was a call-out for action … how could we not respond?” McLeod said they couldn’t have done it, were it not for a recent grant. “We had already budgeted to add solar-panel lighting to the sign directory on the chamber grounds, to make it more accessible for tourists at any time of day or night,” she said. “We had planned to pay for it on our own, so the $1,000 grant we received for it was like found money – it left us with enough to help the food bank.” She said she feels a personal responsibility to organizations like the food bank, as well. “I, myself, went through some really hard times a while back, and I woke up one morning to find my doorstep absolutely filled with groceries and gift certificates – to this day, I don’t know who left them there. But it really helped – it was huge.” She also said, personal feelings aside, promoting a healthy, sustainable community just makes good sense for local businesses. McIntosh said she was delighted with the chamber’s support. “I was just blown away – we both (McIntosh and McLeod) got teary-eyed – it was a very touching thing to do,” she said. “It’s wonderful to know the business community is so willing to give back.” She said the campaign enjoys much of its success thanks to local media, all of whom got on board right away, including Mountain FM radio, KBS radio, Shaw Cable, CBC, the Castlegar News and the Castlegar Source. Once word got out that the food bank was in trouble, she said, the donations started pouring in. “I wasn’t surprised at that – local media, businesses and residents always rise to the occasion,” she added. “My surprise was in how fast it all happened – within hours.” She said the amount raised so far will last just under two months, but the donations are still coming in and there are a couple of community events slated to help out even more – Supercat Studios will be staging a fundraising concert, ‘Rockin’ for the food bank’, at the Robson community hall tomorrow night(Thursday) at 7 p.m.; Safeway is planning a food drive; and Sears’ Lori Orser is organizing an old-fashioned carnival and dance Aug. 7 (for details on the event click here). McIntosh said the donations are critical, as need in the community is greater than ever. “We send out more than 300 hampers every month, and serve roughly 48 people every day in our hot lunch program – that’s about 3,000 hot meals from January to the end of June. “We have new people coming in all the time – and there are people in this community who would definitely not be able to make it without this food bank,” she said. “They’d go hungry.” She said this is just the beginning of a campaign to raise awareness and encourage people to donate regularly. “It’s not a hand out, it’s a hand up to bigger and better things.” For more information, or to donate, contact McIntosh at 250-365-6440.
