Weston Downs Food Drive

One of our partners, Christine Fulsang, and her family organized the 5th Annual Weston Downs Food Drive in their neighbourhood to support the Vaughan Food Bank. Sadly, the need continues to be great, with so many families having to rely on food banks due to the hardships caused by inflation and rising food costs.

The food drive began with the Fulsang Family and two high school students attaching flyers to the red donation bags (sponsored by KJH Cares) and preparing them for distribution. On the weekend of October 21st, the Fulsang Family and a group of six high school students delivered the red donation bags to over 2,000 homes in Weston Downs. Despite the dark skies, they managed to distribute the donation bags without getting wet!

On Saturday, October 28th, 55 volunteers, including 32 students, went door-to-door collecting the red donation bags. This year, the team also had volunteers at the home base to sort the donations before they were shipped to the Vaughan Food Bank. In addition, two Crime Prevention Officers from York Region Police joined the food drive again this year and assisted at home base. Their recognition and support of this community initiative were greatly appreciated. It was also nice to have some extra help to unload bags and sort donations.

The Vaughan Food Bank sent their new truck again this year. The truck can hold eight pallets and has a hoist that allows us to transfer the donations from the bags to the melon boxes at street level. This year, we decided to set up a “drive-thru” style delivery area.  Once donations were collected and returned to home base, the bags were unpacked, and donations were sorted into major categories. Once the melon boxes were full, they were loaded on the truck. The large truck made four trips with the bins fully loaded; this allowed the Vaughan Food Bank to quickly unload the skids with a forklift. The small truck also made one trip. In addition, the Fulsang Family made a trip to the Vaughan Food Bank with a full load in their SUV with the donations they collected after the food drive wrapped up. In total, the team collected 40 melon boxes of donations, which equates to approximately 30,000 lbs. They also collected over $6,000 in monetary donations.

The Vaughan Food Bank was impressed with the results and so grateful to the Weston Downs community. The generosity of the Weston Downs community is overwhelming! Plans are already in the works for next year with ideas on how we can further improve the food drive.