The annual Train the Trainer event proved to be another successful outing for the Abbotsford Innovative Fitness location.
IF Abbotsford raised a total of $26,150 for the Starfish Pack and Health in Motion during the event on Friday (Nov. 25).
Small acts of kindness by Delta residents are adding up to help local children facing food insecurity at home.
The Delta Community Foundation (DCF) donated a total of $1,500 to the Rotary Club of North Delta and South Delta Baptist Church, operators of the North Delta and South Delta Starfish Pack programs.
All of the money donated was collected a few coins at a time via “kindness meters” installed around the city.
A local service club helping hungry students in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows is on the verge of shutting down.
The Starfish Pack Program, which has independently operated branches all across B.C., uses volunteers to pack bags full of healthy and tasty meals for school children who come from struggling families.
The fifth annual Stand Up For challenge saw boarders paddle the 18-kilometre length of Kalamalka Lake to raise money. The event took place September 3rd and surpassed its $24,000 goal even before participants hit the water.
When all was said and done, they had raised $31,110 raised for Kalamalka Starfish Pack. The funds will provide backpacks full of food each weekend to 50 children for the entire school year.
An Eagles tribute concert in Abbotsford on Oct. 20 raised just over $1,000 toward the Starfish Pack program.
The concert, Hotel California: The Original Eagles Tribute, was hosted at the Abbotsford Arts Centre by the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
The club turned over their donation on Nov. 2 from money raised during a 50/50.
After starting with just three students in 2020, the Similkameen Starfish Pack program has grown to support 16, and so has the need for financial support for the program.
The Starfish Pack program provides students at Cawston Elementary School and Similkameen Elementary Secondary School with food to take home over the weekends.
The Starfish pack program is up and running in Williams Lake elementary schools for the sixth consecutive year. A project of the Daybreak Rotary Club, the Starfish packs provide weekend meals for families in need.
For the last six years, the Starfish Backpack program has been feeding school children in need.
Every week, the child receives a grocery bag full of food from the Kamloops Food Bank.
“It hits their hearts when they hear children don’t have food, and I think that’s something for all of us that’s impossible to understand. There are children in our communities that don’t have food when they go home,” said Kamloops Food Bank executive director Bernadette Siracky.
For over a year, Fountain Tire in Penticton has been fixing flat tires by donation, which has brought thousands of dollars to local charities.
The Penticton Rotary Starfish backpack program is the latest to benefit from the flat tire program.
With the help of a lot of generous donors during the month of August, Fountain Tire owner Chuck Thompson donated a whopping $3,974 to the Starfish backpack program.
“Our community has been extremely generous with funding with donations. And we wanted to make sure that that money wasn’t just sitting in the bank, and that it was helping families,” Van Raes said. “There’s a huge need. Now that we’re in endemic mode, we have inflation issues. People are literally choosing whether to pay their rent or put food on their tables.”
“So we want to make sure that we can cover as many families as possible with just a little bit of something for them.”