It may not exactly look like Christmas is right around the corner, but with only six weeks until the big day, Wednesday marked the kick off of the 23rd annual Mayor’s Food Drive.  About a dozen or so organizations and media groups joined together to help celebrate the launch with a very special scavenger hunt that saw us racing and running down the aisles of a local Safeway store. (Above: That’s me with my team from Breakfast Television including Kate McMahon, Andrew Schultz and Kevin Knough.)
The Food Drive runs until December 23rd and donations can be dropped off at any number of locations including All CBE & CSSD schools, all City community centres, all car dealerships (CMDA), all Safeway stores. And, of course, the Food Bank.
The launch was a blast and saw teams face-off to answer crossword-style questions about the Food Banks most needed items. Once we had our clues, we raced throughout the store, grabbing as many items as we could. Safeway was generous enough to donate all the items gathered directly to the Food Drive, so our team made sure to grab the biggest (and most expensive) items!
Here are some photos from the day. If you want some more information about the Food Drive, you can visit the Calgary Inter-faith Food Bank‘s website!
Lisa Wolansky and Erin Strate from Shaw TV.
Teams race around Safeway to gather the mystery items!
We packed our shopping cart to the rim…and more!
Filling our cart with the Food Bank’s most desired items.
The gang from CTV rush to gather as much pasta as they can!
Danaye, Adam and Fuzzy from The Virgin Morning show added their singing abilities to help us secure third place!
The gang from KoolFM and CTV Morning Live teamed up to take on the competition!
In the end, Jack FM was presented by Mayor Nenshi the Golden Cart and they happily donated their prize money to The Calgary Food Bank!
The amazing crew from the Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank celebrate their organizations extra large haul of donations!
It was absolute blast to be apart of this event and such a great way to kick off the holiday season. There was tons of great energy in the room and to see everyone come together for a great cause like the Calgary Inter-faith Food Bank was really amazing.
Here are some Calgary Food Bank Fast Facts:
- In the past year, 146,847 Calgarians received food from the Emergency Food Hamper Program.
- Client visits have increased by 70% since 2007.
- 42% of clients were children.
- Last year, the Food Bank welcomed 17,313 new clients.
