Goalie’s wife on mission to help Houston
What started out with extra baby formula turned into a citywide donation drive for flood victims in the U.S. organized by the wife of Edmonton Oilers goaltender Cam Talbot.
By Labour Day, Kelly Talbot hopes to fill an 18-wheeler with supplies for victims of Hurricane Harvey in her home state of Texas.
Talbot, who gave birth to twins in October, started the initiative after deciding to donate her unused baby formula to families in Houston.
“I figured I would send it myself and then I checked around Edmonton to see if there were any places that had drop-off locations, and I couldn’t find any,” Talbot said Friday. “Someone then gave me the idea to try and fill an 18-wheeler and I thought there was no way I’m able to do that. But that made me think that maybe I’ll see if anyone else would be willing to have dropoff locations for us. So I sent out a couple of tweets and people started messaging me and telling me they wanted to be involved and they wanted to be a drop-off location.”
Talbot arranged 10 drop-off locations in the city, mainly through a social media campaign. Her hope is to receive enough donations by Sept. 7 to fill an 18-wheeler to be driven to Texas. Talbot is updating the donation drive and locations of drop-off points via her Twitter account, @kellytrain.
“I kind of researched what people need,” Talbot said. “People always want to send clothes and things like that, but right now, that’s stuff that they can’t really get to them and sort through.
“So, obviously, baby stuff is in need and everyday items like toothbrushes and toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner and hand sanitizer.”
Many have died already and damage due to the flooding is estimated upwards of US$20 billion.
“I’m extremely proud of her,” Cam Talbot said. “She did this within three or four hours and it kind of snowballed from there. You can see the response that this community has given her and it’s just overwhelming to see the support that people are giving, not only her, but the families down in Houston” Dvandiest@postmedia.com