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.”
The City of Penticton will be proclaiming November as Starfish backpack month, a program that works throughout BC to help kids with food security.
Empty bottles and cans are helping put food into the empty bellies of some Penticton kids.
The Penticton Elks Lodge No. 51 has been gathering empty bottles and cans for weeks, all in support of the Rotary Starfish Pack program that has been struggling during COVID-19.