One can at a time

 

Shannon LeClair

Times Reporter

 

It’s that time of year again: Thanksgiving around the corner, Christmas steadily on its way and the food bank needing donations for their hampers. Last year three different businesses joined heads and came up with the ‘Fill That Bus’ idea. For one day a full sized yellow school bus is on loan in order for it to be filled to capacity with food and other items for those less fortunate. 

“Most of us like to give. There’s people that you know maybe can’t give money but they’ll take their last tin of soup and put that in there and every tin of soup helps,” said Laurie Shannon from Boston Pizza. Shannon and her general manager Gurpreet Uppal are heading things off on the Boston Pizza side of things, with Bill Crawford for Chinook Credit Union, and Susan Fowler from First Student Canada. First Student Canada is donating the bus for the day. When asked why they started the event, Crawford said it was the right thing to do. 

“There’s got to be something more to a business that you’re running, whether you’re selling pizza or giving out money. There has to be more to that than just that. There needs to be some corporate responsibility in the community for the people that we serve, and not just with the business that you do, but to really impact their lives, and this is one way to do it,” said Crawford. 

Last year the event brought in 2146lbs of food, equaling $5,365, and filling the bus. This year the team hopes to double that. 

“The challenge is out there for the companies to really encourage their staff and let their staff run down for a few minutes during that day,” said Shannon. 

“This year we’ll send a couple of drivers too. They love to be part of their community,” said Fowler.  The Wheatland County Food Bank doesn’t just help Strathmore residents, they help all over the county. They help the crisis society and at times even the schools. 

“Anybody in town that needs it, whether it’s school or the crisis centre.  We will help anybody….it’s not just people that fill out an application,” said Marleen Hockin from the food bank.