Staff
The local OPP detachment and district food banks will be hosting the fifth-annual “Stuff-a-Cruiser” campaign tomorrow from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
They’ll be helped out by the Treaty #3 Police Service, CN Police, and Rainy River District Emergency Services.
“We’ll be set up at Safeway, Walmart, and The Place [in Fort Frances], as well as at Cloverleaf Grocery in Emo and Beaver Mills in Rainy River,” noted Anne-Marie Armstrong of the Sunset Country Métis health branch, which has taken the lead in co-ordinating this year’s event.
The OPP van and ambulance will be at Safeway while the OPP suburban and an Iron Range bus will be at Walmart.
The CN Police will be at The Place, with Treaty #3 Police at Cloverleaf and former OPP auxiliary member Don Marquis manning a cruiser in Rainy River.
Volunteers have signed up on the “Celebrating Diversity” website to help out.
“It’s pretty well [full] but if people just want to show up to volunteer at one of those sites to help out, we’re not going to turn anyone away,” Armstrong said.
She noted when people stop by those locations, they will be given a bag and flyer listing some of the desired items.
“They can purchase whatever items and however much they want and donate it,” she explained.
“The volunteers will be there to stuff the cruiser or the bus.”
Armstrong said the donations received in Fort Frances will be divided equally between the local Salvation Army, the United Native Friendship Centre, and the Sunset Country Métis food banks, as well as the Community Christmas dinner.
In Emo, the donations will go to the food bank there. In Rainy River, they will go to the West End food bank.
“So what’s collected locally stays within the community,” Armstrong remarked, noting they filled 37-and-a-half cruisers between Fort Frances and Rainy River last year.
“So we’d like to keep those numbers up,” she said.
