From June 14 to 16, 2024, Westmount Golf & Country Club is hosting its 8th annual Tradition Charity Tennis Tournament in support of The Food Bank of Waterloo Region. A gala and live auction will also take place that weekend.

“We felt that there was a real need in the community with The Food Bank, particularly given the number of people displaced from housing and rising costs,” explains Melanie Marsland, a member of the Westmount Tradition Charity Tennis Tournament Committee.

This is the second year that the proceeds from the three-day tournament will support The Food Bank. Last year’s event raised more than $109,000 for The Food Bank.

“It’s our second year supporting The Food Bank so obviously our goal is to exceed what we did last year and get more awareness for The Food Bank of Waterloo Region,” says Karen Hagarty, another committee member. “We all understand the big impact this has and the dire need for food in our region. The numbers are staggering.”

Committee member Shannon McTaggart agrees, adding, “It’s going to be exciting to see if we can beat last year’s number. We’ve got some new ideas coming to the tournament so it’ll be a little different for the people participating and hopefully, we can get more people involved.”

To kick off this exciting event, we invited members of the Westmount Tradition Charity Tennis Tournament Committee to our distribution centre to participate in a non-perishable food sorting activity in our engagement room. In this space, there are bins, boxes, and bags from community food drives and local grocery stores that are filled with all types of non-perishable food items from noodles to canned goods to granola bars. Committee members helped us inspect these non-perishable food donations for quality, check their best before and expiry dates, and sort them into categories such as pasta, cans, and individually wrapped snacks.

In total, committee members sorted an incredible 776 pounds of food! This works out to 606 meals for people accessing food assistance.

“The sorting activity was amazing,” notes committee member Taylor Iutzi. “It was cool to see all the different types of products that come through The Food Bank.”

After the sorting activity, the committee received a tour of our distribution centre from CEO Kim Wilhelm. They learned how The Food Bank acquires, coordinates, and distributes more than 6.8 million pounds of fresh, frozen, and non-perishable food to the Community Food Assistance Network, a system of more than 120 agencies and community programs working together to provide food, support, and services for people in need.

Leading up to the tennis tournament, there will also be a silent auction and 50/50 Raffle in support of The Food Bank. The public is invited to participate in both. For every dollar raised, The Food Bank can provide two healthy and nutritious meals for people in need.

We’re so grateful to Westmount Golf & Country Club for hosting this event and to all who participate. Your generosity truly makes a difference to the more than 58,600 individuals in our community who struggle to afford to put food on the table and need food assistance.

Check out the silent auction to bid on tons of great items and activities and buy one (or more!) 50/50 raffle tickets for your chance to win big!

The Food Bank of Waterloo 50/50 Raffle ends on June 15, 2024 at 8:30 p.m. The winner will be drawn in Kitchener, Ontario at 9 p.m. and contacted by phone and/or email. Please play responsibly. Licence #RAF1375791