Over One Million Pounds Of Food Collected During June 27th Miracle

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Photos by Anna Millerman/windsoriteDOTca

The results are in for the June 27th Miracle Food Drive.

Organizers estimate 1,032,199 lbs of food was collected, with over half of the food already being distributed to Windsor-Essex organizations who know where the need is and can get the food to the people who need it most.

They say that approximately 5,000 volunteers worked safely together – while physically distanced – at over 40 drop-off locations on a food drive that spanned an entire city and county. A significant portion of the volunteers worked in teams of family members or others in their social circle to cover over 1,800 square km by going home-to-home to pick up non-perishable food donations at many of the 185,000 houses and apartment buildings in the region.

“Having been on the organizing committee last year, I knew we had a lot to do and that we needed a lot of help to get it done,” said Matt Hernandez, one of the members of the twelve-person organizing committee.

Last year, major hubs were available for sorting and packaging the donations, but this year posed new challenges as many of the large arenas and storage facilities weren’t available.

“This year, we had to rethink all of the logistics and distribution. We went with a decentralized approach and called on organizations to register with us to receive donations. Community leaders, municipalities, organizations and businesses came together and figured it all out. This enabled us to get the food in the hands of the people who needed it most right away, “says Herandez.

It is estimated that the food collected stands to feed approximately 15,000 households or 34,000 individuals for one year of food bank usage.
“I want to make sure everyone knows what they did on June 27th is going to help our community in Windsor and Essex County,” said June Muir, President and CEO of the Windsor Essex Food Bank Association and the Unemployed Help Centre.

“Donations were down a lot this year. A big thank you to the organizing committee for another successful year. It is no small task to organize this day. Our community came together again and made a miracle happen.”