100 People Who Care Campaign Makes First Donation to Timmins Food Bank

The Timmins Food Bank is the first recipient of a donation from Business Takes the Lead’s newest initiative.

At the Timmins Chamber’s General Member Meeting on Thursday, the 100 People Who Care Campaign made a $10,000 donation to the local food bank. Paul Ayotte, Chair of Business Takes the Lead, presented the cheque to Timmins Food Bank staff.

The 100 People Who Care Campaign is an initiative that sees 100 local organizations make a quarterly donation of $100. Then those who donated can nominate the charity that the pot of money will go towards. The participants then vote on it and make the donation.

The Campaign can go over the 100 participants for the campaign, but for this first quarter, the campaign was a little short of the $10,000 goal. Ayotte told Chamber members that Goldcorp stepped in and topped up the donation to make it an even $10,000.

“As with most initiatives, we did not fill all 100 people with our first campaign,” Ayotte told the crowd. “So one of our members, Goldcorp, who’s fantastic, graciously stepped up with a one time donation, on behalf of our employees, to match our contributors to ensure the 100 People Who Care Campaign could reach its full impact in the community for this project.”

Rick Young, from the Timmins Food Bank, accepted the cheque and said the situation there is not improving and these funds will go a long way.

“Anybody who works with the homeless or needy,” Young said to the Chamber members, “knows it’s getting worse and not getting better. And the sad part is, some organizations have to cut back on their programs. But, we’re trying to enhance our programs. And it’s something like this that’s definitely going to help.”

The donated funds will be going towards a new sliding door fridge for the food bank. The fridge will help provide more nutritious food for the clients, as staff will now be able to keep fruits and vegetables fresh for longer than they have before.

“We want to get nutritious meals for our clients,” said Young. “We had no place to put [fresh produce]. And this way we can, on a regular basis, store [produce] for a few days waiting for the clients to show up so we can have a more nutritious selection for them.”

The 100 People Who Care Campaign will relaunch in January.