Snow didn’t slow down the giving last Saturday, when volunteers from the Iglesia Ni Cristo Church of Christ loaded 150 boxes of donations into a truck headed for the Surrey Food Bank.
In all, the donations amounted to approximately 5,000 pounds of food for the Whalley charity.
It was part of a nation-wide campaign, which saw more than 50,000 pounds of food donated to nine food banks after a two-week food drive.
“The project is an extension of the global commitment to community partnership of the international religious organization Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC or Church Of Christ),” according to a release, which also notes it’s one of many initiatives which aim to “strengthen the bond between the congregations of the Church Of Christ and the communities in which they serve.”
Surrey Food Bank Executive Director Feezah Jaffer visited the Church of Christ in Surrey as volunteers loaded the truck and said “it’s a really a great feeling for us.”
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“The clients are just people like you and I,” said Jaffer of the food bank’s recipients. “They’re seniors, they’re refugees, they’re the working poor, they’re people on assistance, people with injury, young families, young children. We rely on donors 100 percent, so it’s community helping community.”
Other food banks to benefit from the drive include those in Calgary, Edmonton, Greater Vancouver, Victoria, Fort McMurray, as well as charities in Ottawa and the Greater Toronto area.
“While we strongly believe it is our responsibility to share our Christian faith, we also understand that as Christians, it is also our shared responsibility to do our best to address the basic human necessities of our fellow Canadians – such as, hunger, poverty, homelessness and the like,” said Rolando Gaviola, District Minister of the Western Canada INC congregations.