Fall Food Drive 2012 — An official Thank You from Manna
Letter to the editor
From: Manna Food Bank
October 15, 2012 — We at the Manna Food Bank would like to offer the entire town of Bracebridge a hearty thank you for supporting last week’s Fall Food Drive, organized by the Muskoka Oldtimers Hockey Club.
Most people know about the Fall Food Drive now, thanks to the fact that the Muskoka Oldtimers Hockey Club have been organizing it for close to two decades, and thanks also to the churches and businesses that announce it on their billboards.
What you gave
Many of you dug deep, giving a total of 14,000 lbs of food and $2,300 in cash to the volunteers who went knocking door-to-door along many Bracebridge streets on the evening of October 2. This year saw the most volunteers ever, with more than 200 youth and adults, from the town’s elementary and high schools, Guides, Scouts, Cadets, service clubs and Beaver Creek inmates, pitching in.
A long list of Thank you’s!
As always, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Muskoka Oldtimers Hockey Club, led by Dave Salmon, for their hard work. This is a huge undertaking, and one of the most common comments we hear from new volunteers is how impressed they are with how organized it is.
The Fall Food Drive is Manna’s only community-wide food drive of the year, (the one at Christmas with the firefighters is for the Salvation Army, folks!) and it is an essential for keeping Manna going.
Additional events that week
It was a particularly bountiful week for Manna, with our friends at Investors Group organizing a comedy evening that raised $640 and 300 pounds of food, for which we are grateful. And Bracebridge Culture and Recreation hosted its first Zumbathon, in which 40 participants brought in $120 and 25 bags of food. Many thanks to Zumbathon organizer Fyonna Vanderwerf and instructors Margrit Eilles, Alison Barnes, Kirsten McCrea and Sarah Cripps for donating their time and Zumba-chops.
Food costs have risen 25%
We are particularly fortunate to have such a cohesive and compassionate community here in Bracebridge. While Manna’s client numbers have remained relatively steady throughout the recession–an initial increase and the occasional spike aside–over the course of the last year food costs have risen dramatically. Manna purchases a large quantity of the food it provides to its clients, and as we wind up our fiscal year, we find ourselves facing a 25% increase in food purchasing costs over the previous year.
Get in the habit of buying an item for Manna
So when you’re doing your regular shopping at YIGs or Metro, we encourage you to make a habit of purchasing one or two items for the Manna collection box, located just beyond the cash registers. Manna can never get enough pasta and sauce, peanut butter, jam, crackers, flour, white sugar and baby formula….See our Foods we need page.
Once again, thank you all for your support. We could not do it without you!
Your sincerely,
Wendee Cameron
President, Manna Food Bank.