Gerry Berkhout just couldn’t stay away.
Despite recovering from a car accident earlier in the week, the organizer of the Pelham Community Food Drive persuaded a friend to take him to the 23rd annual event Saturday.
His wife Gwenn Alves and daughter Sylvia Berkhout had already directed drivers and volunteers as they fanned out from the Fonthill Lions Club about 9:30 a.m. They picked up bags of food put out along 30 routes in Fonthill. Other crews were leaving the Fenwick Lions Club in Centennial Park to go along 13 Fenwick routes.
After doing phone interviews with the media from his home, Gerry Berkhout turned up at the Pelham Cares sorting centre at Rice Road Greenhouses.
“I just couldn’t stay home,” said Berkhout. “I had to see how it was going” as he had done for the past 23 years.
He saw everything was running smoothly.
“We have great crews of volunteers and the weather is very good.”
On the dark Tuesday night, Berkhout, 78, was driving west on Regional Road 20, went into the wrong lane behind another car that turned left into Fonthill Plaza. He hit a traffic island and his car flip over. While he did not have any broken bones, he was shaken up.
Sylvia Berkhout for the past four years has been the co-chair of the food drive. Alves took over receiving emails and phone calls from volunteers who were signing up.
The drive attracted about 200 volunteers for the pickup, while Pelham Cares had about 75 sorting and packing at the greenhouse.
Alves said she could have used more young people to assist drivers in the pickup.
“We had lots of drivers but were short on people to go out with them,” she said.
“We could us more kids,” said Sylvia Berkhout. “Next year we will do more promotion in schools and encourage the organization of drivers and crews in advance.”
Pelham Cares had plenty of people young and old working in well lit spacious greenhouses.
Jane Gilmour, who oversees Pelham Cares food program, said the sorting was completed early because of the room to move and the enthusiasm.
“We had to talk volunteers into taking a break and getting some pizza,” she said.
Gilmour estimates the amount of food collected was the same if not more than last year.
Jerry Moes of Rice Road Greenhouses said he was happy to let Pelham Cares use his place when it asked.
“They were already using our rolling shelves,” he said.
It was a down time for his gardening business and gave it good public exposure.
“A couple of the volunteers said they had never been here before.”
During past food drives, crews sorted at the former Donut Diner, former Fenwick firehall, and Old Pelham Town Hall.
Pickup routes drivers said they found more food than they had seen before. A crew from the Fonthill and District Kinsmen Club said there was no need to knock on doors. Bags were out front waiting for them.
This year food drive organizers put up more small signs along road sides and did more publicity for the drive. The promotion reminded people it was coming, so they were ready.
The collected food went to Pelham Cares’ food bank with extra sent to The Hope Centre, Open Arms Mission and Salvation Army food banks.
For some volunteers, the food drive is a family Christmas tradition. Others are belong to clubs and church groups. The Pelham Panthers Junior B hockey team, for example, had a crew collecting.
Among the packers at the greenhouse were Mikuyla and Mitehyl Durante, Marissa Tuttle and Olivia Wall.
“We came with our parents.”
