More houses mean more routes and more volunteers for the 23rd annual Pelham Community Food Drive on Saturday, Dec. 6.
“We are adding routes every year,” said co-chair Gerry Berkhout, “that means we need more people to cover them.”
From 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. crews of a driver and six volunteers fan out from the Fonthill and Fenwick Lions club halls to cover the town’s two urban communities.
He and his daughter Sylvia Berkhout are taking calls from volunteers at 905-892-6988, by e-mail at [email protected], and this year through a Facebook page.
“We need about 200 volunteers to cover the areas,” said Gerry Berkhout.
“We always get a good number,” he said. “Some people have been with us since the beginning.”
Families have made working the food drive a seasonal tradition. High school students find community service hours. Army cadets, scouts, service clubs, scouts, and church groups help to collect food or sort it at for Pelham Cares, he said,
The food collected at door steps goes to Pelham Cares with any overflow sent to food banks of the Open Arms Mission, Hope Centre and the Salvation Army in Welland.
It becomes both a community and area act of generosity, Berkhout said.
This year volunteers will sort the donated food at Rice Road Greenhouses on Rice Road, said Lori Grande, client services co-ordinator for Pelham Cares.
“We will have about 75 volunteers” at the Greenhouses and storing at Pelham Cares new home on Regional Road 20 at Rice Road.
In the past, Pelham Cares has used the Old Pelham Town Hall, the former Pelham Fire Station No. 2 in Fenwick, the former Donut Diner in Fonthill and the former Canadian Tire store in Welland to do sorting.
The December food drive is a major source of donations for the Pelham Cares food bank and helps to carry the service through the winter, said Grande. The new Pelham Cares office has room for increased storage in a basement.
Gerry Berkhout said the food drives depends on the generosity of volunteers, of residents who donate food, of service clubs and of local businesses.
Blue Star Restaurant, for example, provides soup, Country Corner Market food vouchers for volunteers, and Sobeys supplies.
The Pelham Tim Hortons franchise is a major sponsor helping to finance signs as well as providing coffee.
Sylvia Berkhout said small signs scattered through the community to remind people of the food drive helped to increase donations last year. More signs will be out this year.
The Fonthill Lions Club will promote the food drive on its new electronic sign in front of its Regional Road 20 hall.
With a Facebook page, she said, the food drive hopes to catch the attention of more young people.
