Large pallets of food were loaded onto a Save-On-Foods truck in Kelowna on Thursday morning, amounting to nearly 19,000 pounds of food.
The truck then delivered the pallets to the Central Okanagan Food Bank.
The food delivery follows the one-day “Spooktacular Holiday Food Drive” held at six Save-On-Foods locations across the Central Okanagan.
“It started out very small, one store, and now we’re up to all stores involved over the last couple of years. And this is the first time we’ve had a trailer deliver products to the food bank,” said Scott Nazaruk, manager of the Lakeshore Road location.
The fundraiser had shoppers donating food and about $12,000 in money.
“Our local community of Kelowna is so generous and we thank them 100 per cent,” Nazaruk said.
The $12,000 was matched by Kelowna Toyota.
“If we can bring more awareness so that more people are donating, that’s even better,” said Jamie Kaban, general manager of Kelowna Toyota.
“A lot of the people that are coming here, they now are regular everyday people. It’s been a tough year, and so they need more donations, so if we can help encourage that, that’s our main goal.”
Save-On-Foods then gave the food bank a discount to buy $24,000 worth of food.
The donations come at a critical time, just ahead of Christmas and the creation of holiday hampers for a rapidly growing number of families.
“This is very timely, because last year at this time for Christmas, we served around 3,200 households. Right now, there’s just over 4,000 hampers that we’re going to be delivering to households by the end of next week,” said Trevor Moss, Central Okanagan Food Bank’s executive director.
While 19,000 pounds of food marks a huge boost for the food bank, Moss said the need is constant.
“Food insecurity doesn’t go away,” Moss said. “And what we’re seeing is January, February, March, the numbers are going to be high, unfortunately, and that’s that’s the new reality.”
Moss noted that in November alone, 535 people accessed the food bank for the very first time.
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