In response to rising food and living costs and the increased use of food banks during the holiday season, last week we asked you, our loyal readers, to help us support the North Bay Food Bank with an online food drive.
The holidays can be a particularly stressful time for all of us, but especially for those in need. The added strain on our local food bank means it needs extra support from caring community members to ensure that no one in our city goes without.
With this in mind, BayToday embarked on a campaign to raise much-needed funds for our local food bank.
The BayToday Cares: Food Drive campaign was simple. We secured food packages donated by Food Basics North Bay and asked our readers to purchase the packages at $25 apiece through our online pop-up store, with the cash and the food to be donated to the food bank.
BayToday would then match the $25 purchase price to double the donation.
But that’s not all.
We were able to leverage the power of our community to make the donations even bigger by asking our local business partners to match our donation.
Leon’s North Bay and Northern Honda answered the call.
With their support and yours, for each food bag purchased in our pop-up store, every dollar was matched three times with all proceeds going directly to the North Bay Food Bank.
In North Bay, the generosity of our readers and advertisers was translated into a donation of $1,600 for the food bank, plus the food itself - which weighed a total of 168 pounds!
This will make a meaningful difference for the North Bay Food Bank, which provides clients with hampers filled with non-perishable food items, personal hygiene products and baby items, fresh and frozen fruit, vegetables, dairy and protein.
On average, the cost of a hamper for a single adult household is approximately $75. That means we can help the food bank provide 20 hampers this holiday season!
Thank you for helping us to strengthen our community and make the holiday season a bit brighter here in North Bay.
