The Red Deer Polytechnic (RDP) Kings and Queens’ curling team helped do their part this holiday season to support fellow students.
This week, the team used their home at the Red Deer Curling Centre to collect non-perishable food items to donate to the Red Deer Polytechnic Students Association Food Bank.
The primary organizer of the food drive and captain of the curling team Jaycee Bourke said RDP athletics host similar food drives out of the Gary W. Harris Centre every year but because they don’t play in that building they decided to facilitate a food drive of their own.
Even though they don’t have specific numbers of how the food drive went, Bourke said they were pleasantly surprised.
“It was definitely more than they were expecting,” she said. “We filled one and a half car fulls of food which was pretty amazing.”
This is the first time the team has done an event like this but hope to make it a holiday tradition for years to come.
“We really weren’t expecting or sure what kind of support we were going to get from our members but we’re very pleased with how they were able to help us,” she said.
With help from the Red Deer Curling Centre, they were able to get the word out to the community about the cause.
The food was delivered to the Students Association Food Bank to help students this time of year who may be struggling to buy or afford food.
“Our schools’ food bank is kind of having a hard season right now in terms of donations so our coach suggested that we donate to fellow students,” Bourke said.
In December the food bank gives out seasonal hampers to students for that month otherwise a student is eligible for one per year. Bourke said they have used up a lot of their budget and have been well utilized this year.
According to the Students Association Food Bank website, since 2005 they’ve fed 2,000 people. They also provide student discounts to a select few local grocery stores.
For those students who may be in need of a hamper, they can call the Student Connect Centre at (403) 342-3254 or drop by their office in room 1102 on campus. To donate to the food bank those in the community can drop off non-perishable food items to the Students Association office.
“We had a lot of help from the curling community itself,” she said. “We’re really just the face of the food drive and they were the hands of it. They have us all the donations we just delivered it.”