By Adam Frisk Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Haliburton County’s three main food banks are teaming up for a single, co-ordinated push to help ensure there’s food on the table and gifts under the tree for families this holiday season.
Haliburton 4Cs, the Minden Community Food Centre, and the Central Food Network are joining forces again this year in an effort to pool resources to help make local giving easier, avoid overlap, and ensure no family falls through the cracks at Christmastime.
“All three food banks have worked mostly in conjunction with each other forever, for many, many years, but we had never introduced it so that all the kids are covered,” Louise Ewing, chair of the 4Cs board, told The Highlander.
Last December, the charities provided holiday gifts to 482 kids, a number expected to increase this year as more families ask for help.
“Minden has the most children that we’ve supported in the past few years, but last year, there were 482 children supported between the three organizations,” Minden Community Food Centre’s Tracey Gilbert explained. “Safe to say close to 500.”
A big part of the campaign this year is streamlining how toys and gifts get collected and handed out. With the help of the Haliburton County Home Builders Association, Canoe FM and Moose FM, drop bins will be stationed across the County. Everything collected will then head to the Haliburton Highlands Chamber of Commerce by Dec. 7, where volunteers will divide up the donations to each charity.
“The Chamber is going to use a volunteer to separate those things into three separate piles based on the number of kids each food bank provides them,” Ewing explained.
Organizers said that while toy bins fill up quickly, teenagers are the hardest group to cover, ensuring they have gifts during the holidays.
“We do find that the older children tend to be forgotten about. Those are the hardest ones,” Gilbert said. “So toiletry items for them, gift cards, makeup, and deodorants for the guys, those are the ones that typically end up getting forgotten about.”
Each food bank does something a little different for holiday meals. The 4Cs in Haliburton hands out two grocery vouchers so families can pick their own food or stock up on meat. In Minden, it’s a full hamper packed with turkey or ham, with all the fixings, fresh produce, baking supplies, and a milk voucher for Kawartha Dairy. Minden expects to distribute around 235 hampers this year, up from 220 last Christmas.
“We’ve roughly seen 20 more people each year,” Gilbert said. “Last year, we did 220 hampers. The year before, we were just under 200. It’s scary what’s happening here.”
Registration for the holiday campaign is open now, and all three branches have a hard cutoff deadline of Dec. 4. Organizers stressed that monetary donations go the furthest because cash lets the food banks buy vouchers and staple foods in bulk.
“Cash is king,” Ewing noted.
The community can also support the cause by tuning into the 12-hour Canoe FM Radiothon on Dec. 11 (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.), dropping cash in collection buckets outside local grocers, or bringing non-perishables to OPP stuff-a-cruiser events throughout December.
