Royal Bay Secondary was bustling with activity well after regular school hours as students and volunteers gathered for their annual effort to collect 10,000 items for the Goldstream Food Bank.
In what is believed to be the 12th year for the initiative (although it seems that organizers have lost track of the exact date that the idea was hatched) organizers put a call out to the community to prepare their non-perishable food donations. Then on Wednesday night (Dec. 4) students, parents and other caring volunteers took to the street to gather up the bounty.
The program has been a huge success since its inception, and the food collected has become vitally important to the food bank's operation.
“This project is so important to what we do,” said Walter Dubeau, the Goldstream Food Bank’s vice-president. “That’s particularly true given that our demand has increased dramatically over the years. In 2021, for example, our food bank distributed 330 Christmas food hampers. This year we had to close off applications for hampers when we got to 775. Without the 10,000-item program, we’d never be able to meet that commitment.”
The success of the food drive is largely due to the efforts of Royal Bay’s Leadership Team, headed up by Cody Cook.
“These students are amazing. We don’t have to twist any arms to get the students to participate. This is just who they are, and we’re very proud of them,” said Cook.
This year, that dedication took on an additional dimension as a group of students from the leadership team volunteered with the food bank on a previous collection drive.
“Ten of their students came out and helped out a while back and learned about how to best collect and deliver the food,” said Dubeau. “One of the things that resulted from that visit was that this year, the students at the 10,000-item night will be sorting the food for us and delivering it in a way that we can immediately put it on our shelves for distribution.”
In the past, Dubeau explained, the 10,000 items would go directly to the food bank and then the volunteers there would have the laborious task of sorting out expired items and placing the remaining items in the proper locations on the shelves.
“It would take 112 volunteers the better part of a week to do that,” said Dubeau. “The fact that the students are doing that for us is a tremendous gift.”
When the evening was done, the students, staff and volunteers at Royal Bay managed to collect a stunning 10,458 food items and approximately $4,000 in cash donations.
Of course, it’s never too late to donate to the food bank and anyone wishing to add to this total can do so by visiting goldstreamfoodbank.org/donate-food/.
