DIDSBURY - The residents of the town really stepped up to help the Didsbury Lions Club with its local food drive on Thursday (Sept. 22). The club managed to more than double the amount of food and money raised last year. In all, 6,658 pounds (3,020 kilograms) and $900 were donated.
“It went really well,” said Lion member Vance van Dam. “It was the best we ever had which is unbelievable. We were down last year from the year before. This year I think is a record year.”
Van Dam said there were around 20 Lions members along with 52 students from Westglen School out knocking on doors.
All the food, which is estimated to be worth over $16,000, and money will go to the Mountain View Food Bank in Olds, which covers the whole region including Didsbury. Also helping out the club were other members of the community including food bank board members living in town.
“I was a little surprised because we were down last year,” said van Dam about the impressive amount of donations. “I was just hoping to maintain what we did last year. It's great that we exceeded that because the demand is so much greater.”
On behalf of the club, van Dam wanted to thank the community for their great generosity as well as the students from Westglen and everyone else that helped out.
“The town stepped up,” he said. “I wasn't expecting it to be that good so it's even better. You could kind of tell when we were loading things into the trailer that it was a lot of food items. We knew we had a lot of stuff. It was great.”
