Lions food drive fills shelves at Port Cares
The food bank at Port Cares has 1,300 people as registered users and serves about 9,000 kilograms of non-perishable items to its clients each month.
This is why Port Colborne Lions’ annual food drive is an integral event.
“This is absolutely vital. This food drive is essential,” said Christine Clark Lafleur, executive director of the local organization that has been on the receiving end of the service club’s campaign that has been running for more than 25 years.
An estimated 13,500 kg of food was gathered on Saturday and more than $2,000 in cash was brought in, she said as crews sorted through donations at Christian Life Assembly Saturday afternoon.
Like its neighbours in Welland, Port Colborne sees a lot of struggling young families and single parents trying to get by. Onethird of the people who seek relief from the Port Cares food bank are youths.
“What the community gives to the food drive helps a lot of children and we couldn’t be more grateful,” Clark Lafleur said.
About 300 volunteers played a role in Saturday’s collection, many of them from local high schools.
Port Cares has been putting meals on Port Colborne residents’ tables for 32 years and without the annual food drive, this would be far more difficult to do.
“It’s been a legacy,” Clark Lafleur said about the drive.
Port Colborne Lions president Scott Wolff said volunteers who
take time out of their day, including the roughly 70 members of his club, always get a glimpse of what it’s like to be in need.
“Today is a day where people realize they have what other people don’t,” he said.
Donations were also collected in Wainfleet and added to what will be distributed through Port Cares Reach Out Centre.