While young ghouls and goblins prowled the streets on Halloween looking for candy, hundreds of volunteers roamed throughout the community collecting bags of food for an important cause.
Nearly 450 volunteers with Hillcrest Church, the Moose Jaw & District Food Bank, and other organizations visited neighbourhoods on Oct. 31 to collect food during the 14th annual Better Together Food Drive. Volunteers then brought those bags to the exhibition grounds, where one of the buildings had been turned into a sorting and packing centre.
Looking after the organized chaos was Starlene Hermanson, a volunteer from Hillcrest Church who had been the floor manager for four years. The evening could be hectic and crazy, she explained, but also rewarding and exciting since it was amazing to see so many people working together to sort more than 51,000 pounds of food in less than three hours.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said.
Hermanson’s job involved directing people inside the building and ensuring all stations had people working at them. She explained to volunteers how to pack boxes and load pallets since it would be difficult to load poorly arranged pallets onto the semi-trucks. She also ensured everyone had a job, was productive and felt valued.
However, she pointed out there were many volunteers who didn’t require direction since they had been coming year after year and knew their roles well.
One such volunteer was Star Dueck, who, along with her husband Art, had volunteered with the food drive since its inception 14 years ago. She has taken part since it’s fun and she likes seeing the community come together. Some of her duties over the years have included collecting, sorting, and boxing the food.
“I love volunteering … ,” she laughed. The food drive is “just like a bunch of little bumblebees working together and how it’s all over in one night. It amazes me.”
What Hermanson enjoyed the most about the evening was watching the community come together “to accomplish such an amazingly huge feat.”
“Sometimes when food is coming in, it’s like, ‘Will it ever be sorted?’ and then all of a sudden you turn around and it’s all done and boxed up and packaged up,” Hermanson added. “I’m just so thankful for all the volunteers (who) come out and work together, (along with) the sense of unity this brings.”
With coffee in hand, food bank assistant manager Deann Little watched the hive of activity with delight.
“This is the most exciting day of the year according to my books, so I’m loving it right now,” she chuckled.
The sorting and packing become better every year, Little said. This year organizers attempted something new, where they had tables in the middle to keep sorters on one side so they didn’t bump into volunteers who were bringing in food from vehicles near the garage door.
The food bank collects boxes from McDonald’s five days a week year-round so they are all the same size and can be loaded on the pallets in a similar fashion, she continued. Long-time volunteers also know how best to pack those boxes since they remain the same size.
“It’s kind of like a well-oiled machine after 14 years,” Little laughed.
While this was the biggest food drive of the year, Little pointed out it is the monthly donations from churches and businesses that help keep the food bank afloat throughout the year. That is something for which she is also thankful.
