‘WE JUST WANT TO GIVE BACK’
Brampton men drive to Alberta fire zone with truck full of vital supplies,
Men drove supplies across country, just wanting to help
LAC LA BICHE, ALTA.— At the entrance to the Bold Center in Lac La Biche, there was a happy commotion Wednesday night. A group of guys from Ontario had driven across the country to take supplies to the Fort McMurray, Alta., evacuees.
Outside the front entrance, where you could now smell the smoke from the wildfire on account of the wind changing direction, seven guys from Brampton and one from Hamilton unloaded a large U-Haul truck, their arms filled with boxes of mandarin orange cups, snacks and baby food.
“In Fort McMurray, everybody is hurt,” said Gurmeet Singh. “So we want to help.”
The men, all members of the Singh Khalsa Sewa Club, left Brampton in a convoy on Sunday and drove nonstop, only pausing to switch drivers. They arrived Wednesday night at Lac La Biche’s evacuation centre.
Gurpreet Singh says every friend of his here immigrated to Canada, and they have been shown a lot of respect and enjoyed religious freedom.
“Even if you go to Ottawa, they put the Sikh flag over there for one week,” he said, referencing Ottawa honouring Sikh Heritage Month in April. “We just want to give back.”
The day after the wildfire forced the city’s evacuation, the group had a meeting and decided to help. Gurpreet says it is a part of the Sikh faith to give 10 per cent of your income to the needy. So each of them kicked in about $2,600 and, with additional donations from the community, they had between $40,000 and $50,000 to buy supplies. After dropping off the medicine, food and clothing on Wednesday, they planned to sleep at a friend’s home in Edmonton — and then it was straight home.
“All of us, we are working. Some of us are truckers, some of us are from the construction industry, so we have to go back quickly,” Gurpreet said. “All of us, only one person is working in the family.”
As the men talked about their trek, Lac La Biche Mayor Omer Moghrabi came outside. Someone had told him about this latest act of kindness, and he wanted to take a photograph with the group. Moghrabi moved to Lac La Biche from Lebanon when he was just a baby and has been a Toronto Maple Leafs fan his whole life. He excitedly pulled out his cell to show the men his Leafs screensaver. Connections are everywhere.
“They came all the way from To- ronto. I can’t believe that,” said Betty-Anne Eldridge, watching from the sidewalk.
“Thank you so much,” she said to one of the group. “You guys must be exhausted. Thank you for coming.”
When she left her home in Fort McMurray on Tuesday, it was still standing, but the escape was so frightening, she called her sister in Peterborough, Ont., just to tell her she loved her.
“I have to show you a pic of what it looked like when I left,” she said, digging through her purse for the phone that was in her coat pocket all along. The slightly blurry photo is one that almost every evacuee has from the I-can’t-believe-this-happened file — a photo of a home with a flaming orange sky background.
Looking away from the photo and back to the truck, she smiled. “This is so neat,” she said.
“You came all the way from Toronto?” she asked again, in disbelief, as one of the men told her he was actually from Hamilton. Small world — she used to live in Ancaster, Ont. “Hello, neighbour!” she said.
Every day, there is a little angel that appears, she said. On Wednesday, the little angel took a different form: eight guys from the Toronto area, all but two wearing colourful turbans, happy to give back.