Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

23RD ROTARY FOOD DRIVE

With donations down, Kamloops Food Bank looks to reinvigorate Food Drives

Sep 23, 2019 | 4:59 PM

KAMLOOPS — It was a busy scene on Wilson Street Saturday, as hundreds of Rotarians gathered at the Food Bank for the 23rd Rotary Food Drive. Volunteers took the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather while helping sort through the donations.

“It’s a great cause,” Andrew, a Rotarian who brought his two young sons, told CFJC Today. “It’s really cool to see a whole bunch of Rotary Clubs working together and not in any way competing; just making contributions to a great cause.”

Year after year, the Kamloops Food Bank receives around 100,000 lbs. of donated non-perishable food — 50,000 lbs. each as a result of twice-yearly Food Drives put on by Rotary Clubs from across Kamloops. However, Saturday’s recent Food Drive didn’t measure up to some past events.

“We had hundreds of volunteers show up. Literally, record numbers of volunteers,” Kamloops Food Bank Executive Director Bernadette Siracky said. “What we didn’t have was record numbers of donations. We received nearly 30,000 lbs, which is a significant amount of food.”

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However, when you compare 30,000 lbs. to those 50,000-lb. totals from years past, there’s a large discrepancy. Usually, that amount of food is enough to last the Food Bank.

Kamloops Food Bank Executive Director Bernadette Siracky has a theory on why this edition of the Rotary Food Drive didn’t net the same haul as years past; this was the first time the Food Bank didn’t provide that signature yellow plastic bag to each home in the city.

Image Credit: CFJC Today

“What was missing this time around was that there’s no bag to put your food in,” Siracky said.

Instead, the Food Bank printed tags and told donors, “any bag would do.” But, with attitudes around single-use plastic bags changing across BC, the Food Bank wanted to do their part to decrease the waste these food drives generated.

“We were ordering 70,000 plastic bags a year for the Rotary Food Drives,” Siracky explained. “As you know, single-use plastics are something that’s on the radar of our provincial and municipal governments. We need to find another way to get donations in during food drives that don’t involve plastic.”

Siracky says she’s working with Rotary to figure out an alternative to the yellow plastic bags that could help re-invigorate engagement in the Food Drive. However, for one young family, caring for your community is a responsibility this Dad is hoping to pass along to his sons Jack and Luke.

“I’d like to see everybody in the community contribute,” Andrew said. “I’m teaching my kids to contribute, and I think it would be great to see so many people here, we didn’t know what to do with everybody.”