Image Credit: Contributed

VERNON - Thank you Vernon! It has been an exciting week for The Salvation Army House of Hope food bank and another successful annual fall food drive.

This year the fall food drive was targeted in three areas; the Save-On-Foods daily push, the BC Thanksgiving door-to-door Food Drive and the Craftsman Collision “Making a Dent in Hunger” event on Saturday in-partnership with Save-On-Foods. The combined efforts of these three events brought in an incredible 33,212 lbs of desperately needed food for our local food bank.

Save-On-Foods manager, Jim Tennant, and his amazing team of staff have been a key driving force for years in Vernon to motivate the community to respond to the need of those requiring food assistance. Starting on Monday September 14th, Jim and his team worked incredible hard to “Stuff the Bus” generously donated by Trevor Cairns of A1 Bus Ltd.

There was a lot of excitement and opportunity to give as Save-On-Foods brought out the ever popular “Spin the wheel” and offered various sponsored prizes and redeemable points. BDO Vernon, in conjunction with Maple Leafs Foods, served a great BBQ and helped directly raise funds to purchase food for the Food Bank and provide meals for a number of volunteers and customers participating in the fund raising event. Combined, the generous Monday to Friday efforts provided us with 8012 lbs of food.

Craftsman Collision joined forces with Save-On Foods to host the Saturday “Making a Dent in Hunger” campaign with a goal to raise up to $3000 that would be matched by Craftsman Collision. The branded Craftsman Collision truck arrived a 1pm empty and was filled over-flowing by 5pm. Generous support from local friends and business owners helped raise 2,400 lbs. of food and $4,614.27 in cash donations. Mike Mason, manager of the Vernon branch, and his team braved the rain and wet bags to make the first annual Craftsman drive a wonderful finale to the annual effort.

Our door-to-door BC Thanksgiving Food Drive 2015 headed up by Uriah Kane and our friends at the Mormon Church on Saturday had hoped to exceed 18,000 lbs for their fifth annual Food Drive. They far surpassed that goal and brought an astounding 22,800 lbs to the sorting warehouse with an additional number of homes still planning to bring in bags this week.

Finally, a number of hidden hero’s like Bob Marsh (known for his generous community support and action with Habitat, Vernon Chapter), George Young and a team of volunteers received the food and began the labor intensive work of sorting and checking the cans of food to ensure no one in Vernon has to go without access to quality food this fall.

“It has been a tremendous community effort and we are so grateful to all who took time to care for those in need.” Says Captain Jean-Curtis Plante of The Salvation Army Vernon.
High Resolution photos of the various event activities are available upon request.

The Vernon House of Hope Food Bank, operated locally by the Salvation Army for over 30 years

The BC Thanksgiving Food Drive is looking for additional community partners and volunteers, who can donate some time to serve the needs of the community; anyone interested can call Uriah Kane at 250-550-0182.

News from © iNFOnews, 2015