Nicola Valley Food Bank gets huge toy donations

(Image credit: Zachary Stewart/Q101)

Dec 19, 2022 | 1:26 PM Vern Strecheniuk

MERRITT – As the Christmas and gift giving season approaches, the Nicola Valley Food Bank (NVFB) received massive donations.

On Tuesday (December 13), Surerus Murphy Joint Venture (SMJV) delivered more toys and a cheque donation to the Nicola Valley.

“Well this is all apart of our Christmas fundraising and donation drive that we have had at work,” said Adrian Wall, Indigenous and Community Affairs Manager for SMJV. “We put a poster out a few weeks back saying that we wanted to put a toy drive together. We have done this for a few years now, last year with what had happened in Merritt, with the fire and the flood we decided to just bring everything to Merritt so we had 320 toys last year. I really didn’t think we would exceed the amount of toys this year, but I think we were close to 480 toys, half of those went to Merritt and the other half to Kamloops. In addition to that, we have provided, from our cooperate headquarters in Calgary, $2,500 for the hampers both in Merritt and Kamloops.”

Being new to the position, Wall said he didn’t expect so many donations to come from his workers.

“What I didn’t expect, is just the generosity of the workers and the company itself to provide so much back to the community. We’ve contributed to over 119 organizations and individuals in need in the last few years so its been pretty incredible, with us just recently surpassing $1 million in donations as well.”

Another big shipment of not just toys, but food as well came the next day (Wednesday, December 14) from BC Arrow.

“We saw a need for Nicola Valley, who called out for more stuff, so we put together a food toy drive, sit with Santa in a helicopter, and all that sort of stuff,” said Shaun Heaps, President of BC Arrow. “It’s just so important to help out everybody, not necessarily the area, it’s just someone who is needing help, that’s what BC Arrow is all about, is to help communities that are less fortunate than other people.”

Heaps said at least $6,000 worth of toys were gathered and delivered to the NVFB, along with another four-to-five thousand pounds of food. This amount of donations really shocked Heaps, giving the time frame he said they had.

“We were hoping to do more but since it was last minute, we put it together from concept to delivery in six days. We were busting our butts to make it all happen, so it was good.”