You can help people in our community through the ‘Good Buy to Hunger’ food drive at the Moose Jaw Co-op Food Store from now until Dec. 6.
For $10, customers can purchase a ‘virtual food bag’ at the Moose Jaw Co-op in support of the Moose Jaw & District Food Bank.
“They can purchase $10 a bag at the tills. The bag is filled with all the high-need items for the food bank,” explained Michaela Turner, community and employee engagement manager with the Moose Jaw Co-op.
“The bag stays with us, and then on that final push day on Dec. 6, we take the pallets and pallets of all that donated food in the trailer to the food bank and do all the hard work – thanks to the help of, of course, our Moose Jaw firefighter crew.”
The campaign, which seeks to address food insecurity in Moose Jaw, is a collaboration between the Moose Jaw Co-op, CPKC, and Golden West Broadcasting.
“We do what we can, especially to give people around the holidays pantries full of food, not have to worry, and just take a little bit of stress off their plate," explained Turner.
As an added bonus, a donation to the campaign gets you an entry for a draw for four tickets to ride on the CPKC Holiday Train from Regina to Moose Jaw.
The CPKC Holiday Train will be holding a show in Moose Jaw at the CPKC Railyard on Manitoba St between 4:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 7, with free performances from Canadian artists Tyler Shaw and Shawnee Kish.
While people have to make a donation by Dec. 6 to get an entry to ride the CPKC Holiday Train, Tim Wonsiak, grocery manager with the Moose Jaw Co-op, added that donations will be accepted right up until Christmas Eve. “We will keep delivering that food, well into the new year.”
Last year, $18,000 worth of food was collected through the Good Buy to Hunger campaign locally.
Through partnerships with organizations across the United States and Canada, the CPKC Holiday Train has raised $24.3 million and collected over 5.3 million pounds of food for local food banks since 1999.