The Fill A Ford fundraiser at the Hay River Lakeshore Co-Op’s raised over $15,000 over the weekend. The funds will go to the Hay River Soup Kitchen, a local non profit that is run by a dedicated team of volunteers and community activists.
“We had lots of members that came in and donated. We raised over $15,020 for the soup kitchen in Hay River.It was an excellent turnout for our first one,” said Jeff Kincaid, the Lakeshore Co-Op’s business development manager.
The Lakeshore Co-op is also working on plans to collaborate with a local food rescue program in Hay River soon, said Kincaid.
“We will be working with Food Rescue. We’ve been working with Food Rescue here in Yellowknife for a very long time. We are one of the first people that got on board with the food rescue program here in town, and we’re definitely interested in helping them get settled and get a base down in Hay River.”
“Getting more good nutritious products into people’s hands as opposed to taking stuff that we can no longer sell to the waste facility. It’s nice to be able to get that into people’s hands,” added Kincaid.
The Lakeshore Co-Op’s first ever Fill a Ford took place in Hay River on Saturday. Justin Nelson, manager of Lakeshore Co-op explained that while 100.1 FM has been organizing the event for a number of years, this was Lakeshore After over 10 years, the campaign there continues with 100.1 FM in partnership with Tenaquip and Summit Air for the Hay River Soup Kitchen.
Kincaid has emphasized that “the number one focus” of the Lakeshore Co-op is “giving back” to communities and “helping with food hunger.”
“We’re very excited to be down in Hay River and put the efforts of the Co-op behind helping out Hay River through these holiday drives and making sure that we can help anybody who needs some help during that time,” said Kincaid.
“We’re going into sort of our festive holiday season, and it’s good to just sort of give back to those who are having some trouble and going through hard times,” said Nelson.
“Over the years, these are very well attended,” added Nelson.
This was the Lakeshore Co-op’s first year participating in the Fill a Ford event in Hay River, since they opened the new store in town.
“It’s all about giving back to people in need,” said Nelson.
“When we look at Lakeshore Co-op in Yellowknife and in Hay River, we’re part of the community. And that means we’re there to help those parts of that community as well. We’re doing our best to be leaders in the community and and help those that might be a little bit down on their luck,” added Nelson.
While many organization have cut back on donations due to increased costs Kincaid said that this has not been the case with the Lakeshore Co-op.
“External pressures like that wouldn’t deter us from what we do. As a Co-operative, all the shareholders of our business, like all the people who own our business, are the people that walk up and down our aisles and shop in our stores. So we don’t have shareholders somewhere else that we’re sending money to. The only thing that we do is support this community. The reason Co-ops come to communities is to help the people there to supply goods and services that maybe weren’t being supplied before. And so there’s nothing that we do other than help the community. So external pressures, whether it be taxes or tariffs, or policies that are that are negatively effecting the food supply in this country – those don’t affect us giving back. We’re here to give back,” said Kincaid.
North Now spoke with the team of community organizers who run the Hay River Soup kitchen and will have more on that story soon.
