Food for Thought Blog
Police and Fire to Food Bank Day
December 22nd, 2017Events
Tradition can be a year-round affair.
This time of year is often about traditions. It’s exciting to see a relatively new tradition taking root. The second annual Fire and Police to Food Bank day brought volunteers from WRPS and Waterloo Fire to The Food Bank. These essential services have something in common — people can need their help any day of the year and thanks to a caring community we have access to fire and police services and, critical food support throughout the region year round.
Chief Hepditch and Chief Larkin hope to inspire a 365 days a year tradition of supporting food banks through the Fire and Police to Food Bank movement.
Police and Fire staff recognize that this time of year is incredibly busy at The Food Bank and chose to spend the day helping out. They were joined by volunteers from Melloul-Blamey, a vital partner and sponsor of Fire to Food Bank. They donated their time to pick up food drive donations from schools and businesses throughout the Region.
Melloul-Blamey provided much needed support on the road picking up 9,078 lbs of food from 13 locations. Their friendly assistance at our customer service area was incredible, helping to unload, weigh and record 22,283 lbs of food from 50 different community donors.
In addition, they helped get fresh, frozen and non-perishable food orders out to our agencies like Emmanuel United Church and St. Matthew”s Out of the Cold. These holiday elves were kept very busy!
Donors were excited to have these local heroes help unload their donations and take a quick pic!
Other traditions in our community became apparent throughout the day as families and businesses stopped in with their donations. Here’s a holiday sampler:
First Response got the day off to a great start with 36 lbs and $500 received by Chief Larkin. This company has chosen to help The Food Bank for more than 10 years.
Sowa and JD Sweid were among the other companies whose food & fund drives arrived at The Food Bank on this special day.
The Sousa family filled their van with food. Quite literally. Enough canned fish, beans, tomato sauce, peanut butter, pickles, ketchup, mustard (because everyone should have these options) and other most needed food items to provide 852 meals. They do this every year as part of their family’s holiday tradition. That van was an incredible sight and our Fire Fighter volunteers were amazed with the amount of food the family had purchased and transported in their family van.
So far, Fire to Food Bank and Police to Food Bank has raised food and funds to provide more than 52,000 meals.
Thank you to the Waterloo Regional Police Service and Waterloo Fire for supporting Police and Fire to Food Bank 365. It is wonderful to know that food bank donations can be made any day of the year at any fire hall or police division in Waterloo Region.