It was quiet in Revelstoke’s neighborhoods the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 18. Sirens cut through the community sounds of yard work, kids playing and dogs barking to signal Community Connections Revelstoke Society’s (CCRS) 2024 Emergency Services Food Drive event. Volunteers spread out throughout town to knock at doors with maps in hand and boxes loaded in the back of vehicles to collect food and monetary donations in an evening focused on restocking Revelstoke’s food bank shelves.
“We had 240 volunteers sign up for this,” Jenna Thomsen, CCRS’ community food bank manager told Revelstoke Mountaineer. “7,332 pounds of food were donated, 747 pounds of that was expired food we can’t give out. Then we had $5,791 raised that night in monetary donations.”
It’s a year that both under and over performed compared to other years. 2023’s Emergency Services Food Drive event brought in over 9,100 pounds of food, 450 pounds of which was expired and unusable. Monetary donations in last year’s drive of $6,400 was beaten by this year’s final total of $11,091.47, with $300 donated by the community after the food drive and $5,000 donated by Flying Moose Chalet.
Teams ranged in size from the Revelstoke Men’s Shed team of three to Revelstoke Grizzlies hockey team showing up and breaking up into multiple groups. Every team partnered up with one of the various local emergency response groups, including Revelstoke Fire Rescue Services and BC Ambulance Service. The Mountaineer teamed up to participate in the drive.
Once routes were complete, volunteers headed back to unload donations at the CCRS outreach centre. Then the work really began, with teams of seasoned volunteers and a couple of new faces sorting through all the donations in three stages. First checking dates and for damage, sorting items by best before dates. Items on the cusp of their expiration date were taken right to the storage room to ready for the next day.
“Anything in that best before year range, we’ll put it at the front and try to get it out to clients as fast as possible,” food bank staff explained to newer volunteers.
Items older than September 2023 are given to CCRS’ Austin Luciow, neighborhood kitchen manager, to assess what can safely be used in meal programs offered through the kitchen, such as the ready-to-eat meals offered to the community.
“I’m going to look to see if there are any farms that can take the rest,” Thomsen explained. “Farms across Canada will partner with food banks to feed their pigs, [we will] see if anyone local is able to do that. Unfortunately, a lot of this will be thrown out.”
Even if some of the 747 pounds of expired food that can’t be used by CCRS finds uses in other areas, that is still over 700 pounds of food that was picked up, sorted and momentarily stored but won’t be used by the core group the 2024 Emergency Services Food Drive is trying to support; the nearly 800 households that access Revelstoke’s food bank. It’s a number Thomsen expects to grow as the winter months increase Revelstoke’s population.
“I processed 20 new applicants just this week,” she said.
Over 6,500 pounds of usable food for clients to access through the food bank might sound like a lot, and the pallets of packed boxes refilling the storeroom’s empty shelves is a visual of Revelstoke answering the call this food drive season. Still, Thomsen expects that will all be gone within the next couple of months, based on current usage of the food bank. That’s where financial donations can help, giving CCRS the ability to purchase in bulk from grocery stores and build shelf supply back up.
“It’s amazing the variety of food we get from the drives,” Laura Larsson, CCRS social meals facilitator and drop-in assistant told Revelstoke Mountaineer. That variety can help clients with food allergies or dietary restrictions when items bulk purchased by CCRS can’t fit those parameters. It can also give some choice amongst the sea of items such as canned black beans. “It’s kind of neat to see what folks around town are buying.”
Sorting through donations kept volunteers around well into the evening, calls for runners and requests to help track down a sometimes elusive best before date cutting through the general chatter and background music. From time- to-time an exceptionally old date would be loudly shouted out, with volunteers keeping track of the oldest donated item. It’s a competition no one wants to win, but this year went to a can of condensed vegetable soup, dated Feb. 22, 2012.
Once the last box of donations was sorted and stashed in the correct spot, volunteers worked to strip down the collection of tents, tables, string lights, flood lights and other items spread out behind CCRS’ outreach building as the donation sorting zone. Garbage was collected, rides were offered and comments abound about what teams and neighborhoods could make a claim for “the best” if that ever became a competition in future food bank runs.
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