ESTEVAN - The shelves at the Estevan Salvation Army’s Food Bank are more full than they were a few days ago, thanks to Green For Life Environmental’s (GFL) annual food drive.
Six local organizations participated in this year’s friendly competition, which had the theme of Let it Snow and the Food Towers Grow. Each entry was asked to create a tower out of the non-perishable food items they received.
The Black Grasshopper was the winner, thanks to the volume of food they received and the strength of their tower. Affinity Credit Union was second and TS&M Supply came in third.
The Southeast College, CIBC and GFL earned honourable mention status.
Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig and city manager Jeff Ward were the judges. They went to the different locations on Dec. 15 to view the displays.
“We went around to all of the businesses in the morning, and we were just amazed at the creativity that everyone put into it this year,” said Allison Dinsmore, the accounts manager for GFL in Estevan who drove the judges to each location.
She noted that Ludwig and Ward were really impressed with the volume of food at The Black Grasshopper.
“It’s hard to see from the picture, but when you were actually there, it was layers of food,” said Dinsmore.
Affinity Credit Union was very creative, she said, as they had a whole a living room setup, with an Affinity mug on top of a coffee table.
TS&M, who won the previous editions of the competition in 2018 and 2019, had a big Christmas tree with lights, and food surrounding the tree.
GFL, meanwhile, went with an Oscar the Grouch theme, and his head was made entirely of food.
The food was brought in by the employees and the customers or clients of each participating business.
GFL will fill recycle carts with food to take to the Salvation Army. When the contest was last offered in 2019, Dinsmore said 26 totes, which can hold 96 gallons each, were delivered.
A change for this year was they didn’t ask for a specific type of food. In 2018, soup cans were the desired product, and two years ago, it was boxed foods. This year any type of non-perishable food items was fair game.
Salvation Army director of ministry Ronza Reynard had told GFL they needed lots of everything.
“It was a real mixed bag this year, which is good, because that’s what they need,” said Dinsmore.
She’s not surprised with the amount of food collected, because the people are very generous and the businesses come through when it’s something like this.
GFL’s team gathered up the food on Dec. 16, and then delivered it to the Salvation Army.
