The Regional Food Distribution Association is relying on a sense of community to stock its shelves this fall.
“We’re not an island and we can’t do it by ourselves,” said executive director Volker Kromm.
The RFDA launched their fourth annual Harvest for Hunger food drive Monday morning at the Arthur Street Safeway. From Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, there will be donation bins in 22 grocery stores in Thunder Bay and throughout the region.
As a United Way agency, the association is adopting the organization’s model of working with other agencies and the community to achieve success. They’ve dubbed it the Neighbours Helping Neighbours campaign.
“That includes the local gardeners, the people that just drop by the RFDA with a bag of food or the farmers,” said Kromm. “We’re a lot more this year in terms of volume and the quality of products we’re giving to our food banks.”
The RFDA is also looking to collect 8,700 signatures on large plates during the food drive this weekend. By signing a plate, a person commits to donating either food, money or their time to help out their neighbours.
They chose the 8,700 numbers because that’s how many people use the area food banks each month; that’s 13 per cent more people than last year and an increase of 91 per cent over the past five years.
“That’s a lot of people that really need food,” said RFDA chair Kelly Hicks. “We’re looking at the community to try to help us out with that.”
Hicks said the RFDA collected $85,000 worth of food and donations during last year’s Harvest for Hunger and they hope to top that this year, possibly reaching $90,000.
The annual fall campaign brings in a flood of food that is greatly needed, added Kromm.
He said people are often in a giving mood around Thanksgiving.
“Thanksgiving signifies a period of giving before Christmas. For us that’s huge,” he said. “It gets people moving and thinking about what has to be done and for us, it’s the driver.”
