MIRACULOUS GENEROSITY
‘Huge’ response to food drive
To say the response exceed expectations would be an understatement.
Cars and trucks quickly formed lengthy lines looking to unload tons of canned and non-perishable food items at Saturday’s June 27 Miracle food drive.
“This is a huge, huge, overwhelming response and it’s just a great sign of the spirit of Windsor and Essex County,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said outside the WFCU Centre.
“No one expected the response to be this overwhelming. This is incredible. We knew it would be good, but this is incredible.”
More than 10,000 volunteers hit the streets throughout Windsor and Essex County just before noon on Saturday to pick up food left on porches to help those in need and impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been a great day,” one of the many grassroots volunteers, Lynne Comartin, said. “I’m happy the weather co-operated. We didn’t have to deal with rain and it was pretty easy.
“A lot of people have things painted on their cars or signs or balloons. People were kind of celebrating and it’s just good to come together. I think this is such a great thing to do.”
For those hitting the streets, it didn’t take long to realize just how big the response was from people.
“We were just looking to do something for the community and this is just amazing,” volunteer David Burrows said. “We were just overwhelmed by it. We did one block and our Jeep was filled in a half block.”
And when the lines starting forming, volunteers were satisfied to simply sit and wait.
“We looked at the car lineup and I was amazed at all the cars coming in,” said June Muir, executive director of the Unemployed Help Centre. “It was very difficult to keep up at some point, but everybody jumped out of their cars and said, ‘Do you want us to unload for you?’ and we said, ‘Sure.’ Everybody just pitched in. It truly was a miracle.”
Organizers were hoping to collect more than 550,000 pounds in donations across Windsor and Essex County for the Unemployed Help Centre and Windsor-essex Food Bank Association. After watching the response on Saturday, it might be possible, but Dilkens said it will take days to get a total.
“It will take an army of volunteers to actually sort through all of the material as well to make sure we can get it to the appropriate places,” Dilkens said. “We’re prepared to do it. We’ve got city staff that we have allocated to help with this task. They’re working hard today and they’ll be working hard for many weeks to come.”
Just a few hours after the event had started, Dilkens was already talking about opening up more arena space throughout the city to handle the volume of donations. Some trucks were actually asked to return at a later date to drop off donations.
“It’s a great problem to have and we’ll find a way to manage it,” Dilkens said. “The Unemployed Help Centre, the food banks across Windsor and Essex County, their shelves are going to be stocked for quite some time.”
On Monday, Kerri Zold, a member of the organizing committee, said while it’s still too early for a final count, “it’s absolutely safe to say we’re past” (the original 550,000-pound goal).
“We expected it was going to go well, but I didn’t know it was going to go this well,” she said.
The region was divided up into about 14 districts with captains in charge of each. Everything collected in Windsor eventually ended up at the WFCU Centre, but each community in the county also has a central location stuffed with donations.
“Everything is all over the place and there are piles and piles of food that needs to be sorted and measured before we can get a final number,” she said.
Zold also said there have been some people calling to report that their boxes of food didn’t get picked up. Organizers expect to post something soon on the june27miracle.com website with information on how people can donate that food.
Muir said many of the fundraisers her organization would normally run to help stock shelves had to be cancelled this year because of the virus and this event will help fill the void.
“So, I was thinking, ‘Wow, now we’re going to have enough food to get us through, hopefully, and I’m sure even more after December, after the new year,” Muir said. “We have food, everybody’s been donating, but at some point that does run out. So, this food’s going to keep us going and we’re not sure how long this pandemic’s going to last for. So, having this miracle today happen, it’s a miracle. We’re very fortunate. Windsor-essex is very caring. The community has stepped up.
“Hopefully, we’re going to have a vaccine by the new year and things will change. After looking around today, I’m quite confident it is going to last and everybody’s just been so generous. I feel so fortunate and the people of Windsor and Essex (County) that need it feel fortunate. It’s just a good feeling.”