More than 52,000 lbs of food was donated to the Waterloo Region food banks during the annual Dig In food drive. In Woolwich Township close to 2,500 lbs were collected over the one-day event. The Woolwich Community Services also received $354 in cash donations, which will be used to purchase additional food.
Combined with the totals from other food drives and campaigns across the township, WCS is confident it will have adequate supplies to support those in need over the summer months.
“This is such a great drive for us to hold in the springtime because in the summer people tend to go to the cottage, out doing other things and perhaps not shopping as much and we don’t get a lot in the way of donations over those months. So this drive allows us to top everything up now a lets us get through the summer,” said Don Harloff, executive director of the WCS.
In Elmira, Chemutra Co. held an employee-initiated food drive within Erb Street plant located, collecting two large bins of food.
“We are always looking for community events to participate in and I saw the Dig In for the region’s food banks and thought this would be a good thing for our employees to be a part of,” said Monique Lippert of Chemtura.
Plant manager Jozef Olejarz said he would contribute $500 on behalf of the company for each bin the employees managed to fill, resulting in a $1,000 donation to WCS.
“We had a great turn out for this event,” said Lippert. “We haven’t done anything like this for a few years because of the recession. We were focused on business and now that it looks like the recession is ending or is over we are looking forward doing more for the community.”
Students from John Mahood PS participated in a school-wide food drive as part of Hunger Awareness Week, with their Dream Big initiative bringing in more than 2,000 items of food, which were dropped off at WCS on Tuesday.
“We wanted to raise awareness in the school,” said Jenn Catton, a Grade 2 teacher at the school. “This project has really brought the kids and their families together and we have more food than we expected. It is a great life lesson for the students to help others in need especially on the local level.”
With the amount of food received from the Dig In over the weekend and the food still coming from other sources WCS will be in better shape than they were at this time last year.
“Our stocks do go down over the year. Typically Christmas and Easter are our biggest time for food donations and the spring Dig In really helps us get through the summer months until Thanksgiving,” said Harloff.
For more information about the food drive or to help volunteer contact WCS in Elmira at 519-669-5139.
