The holidays are a time of giving, and there’s a great opportunity coming up to help out local families in need this year.
The annual “Stuff-a-Cruiser” campaign returns to the Rainy River District on Saturday, Dec. 7 and UNFC homelessness outreach worker Jennifer Kivimaki, who has spearheaded the campaign for the past few years along with the Salvation Army’s community ministries manager Jill Pernsky, said there are more ways to take part than by just donating food.
“The day of we are looking for volunteers for basically manning the different stations at Safeway, Walmart, the Place, Cloverleaf and Beaver Mills Market,” Kivimaki said.
“The people who volunteer, what they do is there’s a little flyer and we give a reusable bag, and if they want to participate in purchasing stuff for ‘Stuff-a-Cruiser,’ they can go in with our wish list, and they get the stuff and they just hand it back in the reusable bag and then it goes either into the cruiser or into the bus that we have.”
The event runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., and is flexible enough that volunteers need not sign up for the entire day.
“It’s in hour time blocks,” Kivimaki said.
“So there’s a spot for Walmart, a spot for Safeway and a spot for the Place. Currently, the Lakers are filling up a lot of time spots. They’re volunteering to help out, but people can still join them as well, so don’t be deterred if you see someone else signed up in that time spot, because the more, the merrier.”
Even with volunteers helping out, it takes a community of collaborators to pitch in to make the campaign a success.
“Along with the OPP, other agencies like CBSA, the CN police, Treaty #3, the EMS, they’ve all been involved as the different agencies who set up at the various locations,” Kivimaki said.
“Then they collect for us and it gets distributed. The local ones in town, they get split between [the UNFC food bank] and the Salvation Army, and then the food that’s collected in the west of the district just stays at their local food banks,” she added.
While the aim of the drive is to collect non-perishable food items for local food banks, Kivimaki noted that the campaign has tried to get people to think outside the box when it comes to their donations to cover different meals and times of day.
“What we’re looking for is non-perishable food items,” she explained.
“People always think or soup and that kind of stuff, but we kind of rearranged the wish list a little bit last year, so canned meat, peanut butter, canned fruit, cereal and oatmeal, jam, those kinds of things, because a lot of people that are accessing the food bank might not necessarily have the means to cook a lot.”
Another area to consider when picking up items to donate is for outside of meal time, as well as families with school aged children.
“Coffee, tea, sugar–those are all things that aren’t a necessity but sometimes it’s nice for people to get,” Kivimaki said. “And then granola bars and juice boxes for people with kids. We provide those for anybody with school lunches.”
The “Stuff-a-Cruiser” campaign also directly helps out another area charity event when they can.
“We also collect donations that get used for the annual Christmas dinner,” Kivimaki said.
“We do collect turkeys, Stove Top Stuffing, the cranberry sauce, the stuff for the dinners as well, and we do give that to them to make the Christmas dinner.”
Kivimaki noted that the campaign is important because of how many people the food banks support in the Rainy River District.
“It supports the whole community,” she explained.
“Anybody can access the food bank, and it is well accessed in this district. So we help the local families and individuals in need, and especially during the holiday season.”
Anyone interested in volunteering their time for this year’s “Stuff-a-Cruiser” campaign is asked to call Kivimaki at 274-8541, or by clicking the sign-up button at www.celebratingdivsersity.ca.
