Thank you Summerland

Dear Editor: As president of the Summerland Food Bank and Resource Centre I try, once in a while, to take a shift at the help desk because it gives me an opportunity to better understand the needs in our community.

One never knows who is going to come down our rather awkward stairs next, but many who do are bearing donations of goods and money to help us with our work.

This past Christmas season, two donors told me that their significant donations were in appreciation of help they had received from the food bank many years ago, as they and their families struggled to settle in Summerland.

It brought to my mind the investment activities of a bank; the only difference in a food bank being that we are investing in the potential of people. It is most common for those of us who volunteer at a food bank to think in terms of our short-term needs will we have enough resources to get through the next few months? for example.

It came as somewhat of an epiphany to me that the investments made many years ago by the food bank volunteers of the past have been paid back to our community many times by those former clients who have remained in Summerland and built successful lives and businesses here.

I can only hope that in subsequent years, many of our current clients will look back just as fondly on our efforts. There is possibly no greater work we could do. Thank you to our entire community for your continuing support of that work.

John Bubb, President Summerland Food Bank and Resource Centre