ROGERS CENTRE TRANSFORMED INTO FOOD BANK CENTRE

Normally chockablock with popcorn, hotdogs and beer, Toronto’s Rogers Centre — home of the Blue Jays — is about to become home to 10 millions pounds of food. The field will be used by Rogers and Jays Care Foundation in support of Food Banks Canada in a new initiative, Step Up to the Plate.

Rogers Centre will house 6,000 pallets of food that will be sorted into food hampers on the field and delivered across the country to families in need. Food banks have seen significant drops in donations and volunteers.

Each hamper will be filled with a variety of non-perishable food items, providing one individual with a week’s worth of food.

“With Rogers Centre vacant until baseball returns, we have an exciting opportunity to open our pantry of assets and offer a much-needed resource for Food Banks Canada,” said Melinda Rogers-hixon, Rogers Communications’ deputy chairman of the board. On the field, hundreds of Rogers employees and their families will stuff the hampers as part of the company’s annual Give Together volunteer program, with hundreds more Rogers employees across the country volunteering at food banks throughout Canada.

The goal is to fill 390,000 hampers, for a total of eight million meals.

Step Up to the Plate is an extension of Rogers’s national awareness and fundraising campaign for Food Banks Canada.

“With millions unemployed and businesses closing every day,” said Food Banks Canada CEO Chris Hatch, “we are grateful to Rogers and Jays Care Foundation for stepping in — and up — to make this help possible at Rogers Centre.”

This is the 36th consecutive year the Blue Jays have supported Food Banks Canada.

“Jays Care proudly works to level the playing field for more than 35,000 vulnerable children and youth every year and many of our programs provide nutritious meals to kids in communities across Canada,” said Robert Witchel, executive director of the Jays Care Foundation. “COVID-19 has had a disproportionately harsh impact on Canadians who were already facing hardships. In response, we doubled down on our efforts to address food insecurity in communities and, together with our partners and fans, have contributed more than 1.5 million meals. We’re excited to join Rogers and leverage our ballpark to provide even more meals to Canadians in need.”

If you can help make a contribution of any size to Food Banks Canada, please visit foodbankscanada.ca.