More than 250 people helped raise a record amount for the Cloverdale Community Kitchen Sept. 11.
The cyclists took part in the annual Ride for Refuge and raised more than $75,000 for charity.
Riding along four different routes that started and ended at the Community Kitchen, cyclists toured circuits of 133 km, 108 km, 55, km, and 25 km.
Matthew Campbell, director of the Cloverdale Community Kitchen, said he was blown away by the support this year as the donation amount nearly quadrupled the average yearly amount raised.
“It’s absolutely fantastic and amazing,” said Campbell. “We raised way more that I thought we’d raise. We’ve been raising about $15-$20 thousand per year. So this year was, wow, amazing.”
Campbell said the biggest single donation came from Paramount’s Superman and Lois production crew. He said the crew asked how they could give back to the local community (they film on the Fairgrounds) and someone suggested supporting the Community Kitchen.
“They reached out and we told them we needed to expand our kitchen area,” said Campbell. “So they had different teams competing against each other to see how much money they could raise. The costume team, the make-up team, the catering team, the camera team—they had about 16 different teams fighting to see who could raise the most.”
In total, CCK received about $24,500 from the Superman and Lois teams.
Campbell explained CCK is in dire need of expanding their kitchen area. Through their meals programs, both in-house meals and meal delivery, they have expanded from about 15,000 prepared meals to 40,000.
“We’re need to increase our cooking and preparation areas,” he said. “We need another oven, a stove, and with that comes all of the other things, such as hood vents, fire suppression systems, etc.”
He said with the new capacity, it will allow them to get those 40,000 meals out the door, but also give them the breathing room they need to be able to increase the amount of meals they produce to fill growing demand.
“We don’t know what our new capacity will be yet, but we know it will allow us to be able to take things to the next level.”
Campbell said he would like to offer “a tip of the cap” to Peak Construction Group out of Campbell Heights, as they were lead sponsor for Ride for Refuge.
“They helped out so much. They were here at 7 a.m. helping to set up. They led to way in so many areas.”
editor@cloverdalereporter.com
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