The nine employees of the Pattern Energy Group wind farm in St. Joseph showed up on the doorstep of the Red River Food Bank over the holidays to make a gift of a thousand pounds of food.
“Our company has a community engagement plan,” explained spokesperson Kelly Hildebrand. “We wanted to do more than just send a cheque. Why not get all the employees to help deliver food stores to food banks?”
The group not only visited the Red River Food Bank, but also made monetary donations to the food cupboards in Altona and Emerson.
Pattern Energy Group uses scientific expertise and extensive experience to develop wind projects that harness strong local winds to create a significant source of renewable energy. The wind farms in the RM of Montcalm and Rhineland reached full operation in 2011, becoming the largest wind energy project in Manitoba.
The St. Joseph wind farm has 60 towers spread over an area of 125 square kilometres. The wind from just near the RM of Rhineland landfill site west to Highway 75 generates electricity that feeds into Manitoba Hydro’s power grid at their field site located just on the outskirts of the community of St. Joseph’s. Each tower can produce 2.3 megawatts of power. The farm generates 13megawatts daily.
“Our wind farms are a part of small communities. They are on local land and employ local people,” noted Hildebrand. “This year we wanted to reach out into those communities and help. One of our employees knows of a person who uses the food bank. Now the donation become personal.”
The Red River Food Bank relies on donations to stock its shelves. The gift givers from the St. Joseph wind farm made it personal by calling and getting a list of needed items, which included cases of diapers, cartons of tuna, and rolls of toilet paper.
“We won’t need to make a food order this week to stock the shelves,” noted food bank director Pat Remple.
The Pattern Energy team wanted to acknowledge Chris Klassen.
“The Morris drop-off is the only visit where everyone was available,” Hildebrand noted. “We had to leave someone back at the office to answer the phones.
“Our corporate structure changed this year. We now employee six technicians and three office staff locally,” Hildebrand shared. “They live and work here. We had the manpower on site to actually deliver the stuff ourselves.
“Food is expensive. There is a need and our team wanted to help fill that need,” was the parting comments expressed by Hildebrand as the Red River Food Bank staff extended thank-you handshakes for the welcome delivery.
