File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Jill Sperling

Virtual Holiday Train

Kamloops Food Bank encourages people to donate while watching CP Holiday Train online

Dec 10, 2020 | 2:09 PM

KAMLOOPS —There will be no CP Holiday Train rolling through Kamloops this year, but the celebration will continue.

The annual Holiday Train has raised more than $19 million for food banks across Canada since it started up 21 years ago.

Normally, crowds gather with food donations to watch the festive train pull up for an evening of entertainment. Because gatherings have been restricted this year, the Holiday Train will appear online instead.

“They decided to re-envision what this was going to look like. So, we have Serena Ryder, The Trews, JoJo Mason, and they’ve created this incredible production with an old steam engine. We’re going to see an actual really great show streamed on Saturday,” said Kamloops Food Bank Executive Director Bernadette Siracky.”

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“Instead of bringing the $20 that you donate to us or the bag of food, very simply you text the word FOODBANK to 45678 and you can donate $10 or $25 to the Kamloops Food Bank.”

The CP Holiday Train At Home concert will stream live on Facebook at 5:00 p.m. Saturday (Dec. 12).

Last year, the Kamloops Food Bank received about 5,000 pounds of food as people gathered to watch the train. Not knowing how the pandemic will impact peoples’ finances in the weeks and months to come, the food bank is hoping to stock up to help those in need.

“Just as this year, every month we don’t know what’s going to happen, we don’t know what’s going to happen next year,” Siracky said. “So for us as an organization, what we need to do is be strong stewards of the financial donations, of the food donations so that we can be prepared for whatever next year holds. Because if this year taught us anything, it is we don’t know.”