It’s not every day a truck with a donated skid of almost 9,000 Grade 'A' eggs pulls up to 100 Crimea St., but a spokesperson for the food bank at that address says every last one will all be put to good use.
The one-time donation represents almost as many eggs as the Guelph Food Bank is allotted each year through the Ontario Association of Food Banks.
Pauline Cripps, marketing and communications coordinator for Guelph Food Bank, said the timing of the egg delivery is perfect, as they just finished distributing the last of their quarterly allotment of eggs and Thanksgiving is just a few days away.
“Now we can make sure every single family that comes through our doors can get eggs,” said Cripps.
The delivery of Ontario Pride Eggs on Monday was donated through the 'Drive Away Hunger' initiative by Farm Credit Canada (FCC).
Each of the 48 cases delivered Monday contains 15 dozen eggs each — for a total of 8,640 eggs with a total price tag of $1,483.20.
Cripps said the typical allotment the food bank receives through the Ontario Association of Food Banks is about 13 cases delivered four times per year, for a total of 52 cases.
“Now we can guarantee everyone is going to get eggs in the next couple of months,” she said.
FCC is a financial lending organization which services the agricultural sector. They donated the money for the egg delivery to the Guelph Food Bank.
Next year, their 'Drive Away Hunger' food bank initiative will be 15 years old, said FCC relationship management associate Maria Domingos.
She said the initiative began when Dale Snider, an FCC employee in their Listowel, Ont. office, drove around various Ontario communities with a tractor and trailer collecting food for a week to donate to the local food bank, providing almost 60,000 meals with the food he collected along the way.
“Farm Credit Canada thought that was a great idea and adopted it as a national campaign,” she said.
In addition, FCC recently made a donation of $1,000 to the nutrition program at a Elora Public School in Elora, Ont — part of a national campaign offering $100,000 total to school food programs.
FCC also works with school groups to pick up from food bank donation drives and delivering those goods to food banks in the area.
“Whatever we collect in the community, stays in the community,” said Domingos.
The school groups are then entered into a draw for the chance to receive money for their food donation efforts.
Corey Deschamps, general manager Ontario Pride Eggs, said each of the company’s grading stations — in partnership with FCC — is donating a skid of eggs to a local food bank in their community.
“It worked out well because we just opened our new facility in Kitchener 13 weeks ago,” said Deschamps.
