Monday December 20, 2010
For Immediate Release
We Did It! Thank you!
Last Monday SHARE issued a plea to the community. We had run out of food to pack 1,600 Christmas Hampers.
By Tuesday the media, including the Coquitlam Now and Tri-city News, CKNW, Global News, Dave.ca Communications Inc., CBC Radio and the Vancouver Sun all responded with news features. All day, people arrived at the Food Bank with donations of food that filled a 5 ton truck. Tuesday afternoon, CKNW organized a remote broadcast Food Drive at the Pinetree Save-on Foods that raised 9,500 lbs of food (UPDATE on December 23rd: 15,000 lbs of food and over $50,000 raised).
“The call for help from the media was instantaneous and the response from the community was overwhelming”, said Heather Scott, Director of Development. “We really want to thank our local and regional media for stepping up so quickly to make sure our community knew about the situation and knew how to help”.
As soon as the food started arriving Wednesday night, SHARE’s volunteers began sorting it so that it could be packed for Christmas. By Thursday night, enough had been sorted that they could begin topping up the Christmas Hampers. The process continued while the Hampers were being distributed on Friday and Saturday. “The Christmas Hampers were fully packed to where we had hoped and planned for them to be”, said Martin Wyant, CEO. “It was amazing and heart-warming to watch our community become mobilized so quickly to help us bring strength and hope to vulnerable children, families and seniors in the Tri-Cities.
In addition to the response with food, SHARE also received a significant number of financial contributions. “We won’t know for sure until January how much money came in as a direct result of this community appeal” says Heather Scott, Director of Development. “We are in the midst of our Christmas campaign when we would normally see donations. Having said that, there’s no question there was a big jump in our donations and I conservatively estimate that we received $50,000 in donations that we wouldn’t otherwise have seen”.
On Thursday and Friday the food from the local schools started arriving and now the Food Bank begin sorting the food over the course of the next month. “We won’t really know until it’s all sorted how long this food will last. Our hope is that it will get us through until the Spring”, said Wyant.
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For more information
Heather Scott, CFRE
Director of Development
604-529-5119 (direct)
email: heather.scott@sharesociety.ca
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