Communities rallied last Wednesday evening to support Farm Credit Canada’s annual Drive Away Hunger food drive.
Early indications were that record amounts of food and monetary donations came in to support the Winkler and District Food Cupboard, Morden Caring and Sharing, and the Rhineland Area Food Bank.
In Winkler, it was estimated about 20,000 pounds of food and around $2,000 in donations were collected—an increase from around 14,000 pounds in both 2022 and 2023 and about 19,000 pounds in 2024.
“I know we have been seeing some year over year growth in a lot of ways,” said Brad Harms, youth pastor at Grace Mennonite Church, which is among the Winkler churches that support the campaign each year with volunteers.
“The generosity of our community is just absolutely incredible … and I could not be more excited to see the community come together and support these kinds of things,” said Harms, who shared the Winkler food bank is supporting about 300 families.
He estimated the amount collected will perhaps last them until Christmas.
“This is a huge benefit for the food cupboard and those who are in need,” Harms said. “It’s also an awareness thing.”
And he added it feels especially meaningful to see the kids getting involved and giving back to the community.
“It was absolutely incredible. I think we had about 600 youth and volunteers helping out,” Harms said. “The excitement, the joy, the fun and the sorting of the food … we always have a little bit of a game to see what the most expired can of food is that we can find.
“This is highlight for a lot of kids to be able to come out and be a part of this … that’s really exciting.”
In Morden, Youth for Christ provided several youth volunteers who joined in the effort alongside other youth groups and organizations.
“I feel like it’s awesome to give opportunities for the teens to serve their community and just to be a part of something bigger than themselves and contribute to other people as well,” said Ev Thiessen.
“It’s a way that we can help address this need as a community and do it together for the benefit of other people,” said Thiessen, who suggested the kids are keen to get involved and help out if given the chance.
“It’s cool that it’s all the different youth groups who are getting involved,” she said. “All the youth groups make this a priority in how they plan their year.
“It takes some bravery,” she added. “They’re doing that grunt work. They’re engaging in the community and doing some of the hard work of actually picking it all up. They give up their evening to help make sure that our community can help respond to the fact that no one should be hungry.”
“It is very important to us,” said Amy Friesen of Morden Caring and Sharing, which has long been the Morden recipient of the drive.
“For us, we don’t do any active fundraising. We’re not government funded. We rely completely on donations from within the community … so this food drive is the one time that we get a collection to come in like this, and it fills our cupboard, and it helps us to continually feed families throughout the year.”
Friesen noted some of the food that is collected also helps support the lunch program in Western School Division.
“We usually run anywhere from five to seven thousand pounds of food for Morden,” she estimated. “We do run out of some stuff, but some of it lasts right up to the next food drive. It really really helps us out to fill our hampers.”
She agreed it feels good to see the community involvement that makes it happen.
“It’s fantastic. It’s so incredible to see the youth come in and to have the energy and the excitement that they have of getting together and doing this to help other people,” she said. “We are in so much awe every year of what comes in and how people have been so generous within our community. It’s almost beyond words.”
Friesen noted the campaign also helps make people more aware of Morden Caring and Sharing.
“We were actually told a number of years ago that we are Morden’s best kept secret,” she said.
“We do run differently. We aren’t a traditional food bank. We are an emergency food hamper service along with providing a host of other services including our lunch and snack program in partnership with Western School Division,” she said. “We do it all very confidentially and very quietly.”
In Altona, it was estimated about 5,000 pounds of food and well over $5,000 in donations was collected by an army of local volunteers.
“It is definitely up from last year,” said Angelika Stoesz, board chair of the Rhineland Area Food Bank. “It went great … there were lots of youth out collecting of course with their parents. It was a beautiful evening, and everybody was happy to be out and about, so it was very successful.”
She said it always feels good to see the community come together to support the food bank.
“We just have tremendous support within our community. We just couldn’t do what we do without that,” Stoesz said. “It certainly will make a difference for the next while … it will mean we won’t put in nearly the size of food orders that we usually need to do, and it gives the clients some extras that they usually don’t get, so it’s basically a win-win all around.”
“It was an excellent evening,” she reiterated, adding it is especially nice to see youth involved. “The kids had a lot of fun, and we at the food bank who were volunteering had some fun. We worked hard but it was great.”
Richard Bage, lead pastor at South Park Mennonite Brethren Church, agreed it is meaningful to have the younger community members involved in an initiative like this.
“It was fantastic. We had probably about a hundred kids show up representing five churches … and we were able to canvas the entire town and many of the surrounding communities in under two hours.
“Any time you see young people wanting to serve and get involved in their community, it’s a great thing. They’re eager to go out and collect, and you’ve got residents who are always excited to see young people at the doors, and they’re always happy to give,” he said.
“For a lot of people, times are tough right now … but thankfully we have incredibly generous communities where if people are able, they will donate and help provide for their neighbours. It’s one of those things where you would love it if a food bank could work itself out of business because it wasn’t necessary anymore.”
