It is with great pride, happiness and thanks that I can report to you on our club’s most recent activities…
Our club delivered 4 Keurig coffee machines and more than 1200 coffee k-cups to the Georgian Bay General Hospital (GBGH) last week. On top of our donation, we connected with Tim Hortons, who partnered with us to donate enough cups, lids, stir sticks, cream and sugar for 1200 cups of coffee! GBDH Foundation Executive Director, Nicole Kraftscik, said the hospital staff actually cheered when they saw our donation. She confirmed how much a cup of coffee can change the mood and motivation of a frontline worker in the middle of a long shift.
Today, our club delivered over $14,000 of food to the Salvation Army! What started as an idea of buying $5,000 of food compound through a partnership with with Midland Foodland. Midland Foodland was able to secure bulk shipments from Kraft and other suppliers, then sold it to us at cost. This stretched our $5,000 into $7,000 of food. And then to top it off, Midland Foodland matched our donation with another $7,000 of food! All food combined, we had 8 full pallets of food for the Salvation Army. Amazing!
But of course, this was supposed to be a "hands OFF" project to avoid unnecessary contact. What we thought would be one or two pallets of food deliverable with a pick up truck, turned into 8 pallets, which posed a major logistical problem. Enter Midland Home Hardware who were gracious enough to send up their boom truck, where they forklifted all 8 pallets of food onto the flatbed, transported it downtown to the Salvation Army, and unloaded at their shipping door, all without any human handling! We're so happy and thankful with how this turned out.
To top it off, Barrie CTV News showed up and interviewed Drew and I. It was great that we could promote the Salvation Army and the great work they are doing, the amazing partnership with Midland Foodland and their matching donation, the generosity of Midland Home Hardware, and of course our effective initiative.
A HUGE THANK YOU to all who have been involved in these initiatives, including everyone that has been involved in our fundraising events over the past year that has helped to fund these initiatives. We will continue to help our community in any way that we can while keeping our members safe.