With nothing but time on their hands in the midst of a pandemic, a local couple is doing what they can to help the Sudbury Food Bank feed the numerous people using its services.
Curtis Loiselle and Ashlie Wainman have spearheaded a fundraising campaign called We The Bury, a bottle drive to raise money for the food bank.
“Last week, we were sitting around, and we were looking for something to do,” Loiselle said. “We wanted a way to give back. We have time, we’re bored, so what could we do? We bounced around a few ideas and settled on the bottle drive.”
On April 26, they set their minds on it. They reached out to others to gauge their interest, and they were surprised to see the level of support. They created their Facebook post, and they were getting more comments than they expected, and people started sharing it, Loiselle said.
The couple has set a goal of $500 for their fundraiser, but they surpassed it in only one day.
On the first day, we got $750 worth of donations,” he said.
Their efforts have not gone unnoticed. They have been interviewed by 92.7 Rock, and they’ve caught the attention of some local businesses that have offered up help.
“It’s just blown up, it’s way bigger than I thought it would be,” Loiselle said. “It’s kind of overwhelming because we were so busy driving around picking up donations. It’s awesome to see the community get behind this.”
The rainy weather put a damper on pickups Wednesday and Thursday, he said, but the group had 30 pickups scheduled for Friday alone, and even more for the weekend.
Canada Post and the Guitar Clinic on Lasalle Boulevard have both reached out to offer support. Loiselle said Canada Post offered to lend a few vehicles and staff to help with pickups, and Ben Rinaldo, of the Guitar Clinic, is also lending his cargo van to help bring bottles to the Beer Store distribution center in Lively.
The Beer Store is taking only one cart of empties per customer right now, but for this cause, Loiselle said they have agreed to accept all of the empties brought in as part of the bottle drive.
“Everyone is helping out, and that’s great to see,” he said.
Topper’s Pizza has donated five large pizzas to the cause, East Side Mario’s has donated coupons for free cheese sticks, and they will be inserted in random thank you cards that will be handed out to those making donations.
“It’s pretty cool, the support and feedback we are getting,” he said. “I know the food banks are struggling right now, and this will help them out.”
Loiselle said he has assembled a team of volunteers to help pick up bottles, but more help is always welcome. For more information, contact him on Facebook.
And while he said every single donation helps, he asks that residents not go to the food bank to drop off donations.
