The annual Canada Post drive to restock the shelves at the local food bank ended on a successful note last Saturday with nearly 6,000 pounds of food being donated and delivered.
Canada Post employees had arranged earlier in the week for residents who receive their mail by carrier, to leave the food out in an easy accessible spot Saturday morning, ready for pickup. The food bundles would be identified by the use of the yellow Canada Post card attached to the bags of food that made for an easy pickup by the volunteers who were in the trucks, looking for the donations. Those without mail delivery were asked to take their food to their Canada Post office or drop it off directly at the food bank which is operated by the Salvation Army in Estevan on Fourth Street.
"We received 5,930 pounds of food on this drive," said Major Len Millar of the Estevan Salvation Army who was one of the busy volunteers who received, weighed and sorted the food as it arrived in a convoy of trucks throughout Saturday morning.
"We received another 25 pounds of food Monday morning, and we're accepting food in the name of the Canada Post drive up to the end of this week, so I expect it will be over 6,000 pounds by that time," said Millar. That will pretty well match the previous efforts from preceding years.
About 450 pounds of the donated food came in early, either through direct delivery to the Canada Post office or the Salvation Army.
"The donations were very good items too. We have a good quantity of cereals, pastas, peanut butter, jams and jellies. There are no real gaps in the food supply now," said Miller.
It had been noted that in September the Salvation Army spent about $1,000 in supplementing the dwindling supply of foodstuffs on the food bank shelves since they had run out of the more popular food bank items such as cereals, pastas and coffee.
Millar said the food bank was also the recipient of a very welcome donation of about 1,600 pounds of meat, the result of this past summer's annual 4-H beef sale at the Exhibition Grounds. Two purchasers of 4-H beef steers have since donated the meat to the food bank for distribution to those who need a food boost.
"That pretty well filled our freezers. We have a little room left in the event there is another donation, but what a treat this is," said Millar.
The Canada Post and local food bank partnership now puts the food bank in a position where they can probably fill all the demands up to the Christmas season when there will be another focus on the needs.
