A local classic car club capped off its season with a "significant" donation to The Sharing Place.
The Back Alley Cruisers meet in the parking lot near State & Main every week throughout the spring and summer, and on Friday the club donated over $2,300 and dozens of bags of non-perishable food to The Sharing Place during its final meet-up of the year.
Dave Grant, one of the club’s organizers, said the funds were raised through a 50/50 draw and through an electric guitar that a member put up for a raffle draw.
“He donated all the money that was raised to the food bank, and he finished painting the electric guitar to whatever colour the winner wanted,” Grant told OrilliaMatters.
The guitar was ultimately painted the same colour as the winner’s black and grey Camaro.
Friday’s donation was not the first time the car club has supported the local food bank, and this year’s donation builds substantially upon its $1,770 donation in 2022.
Grant said the club chose to donate to The Sharing Place once again because of the need in the community.
“There's lots of people that need food, and that are homeless, so it's a great charity to work towards getting food and whatever they need,” Grant said.
Sharing Place executive director, Chris Peacock, called the Back Alley Cruisers’ efforts a “significant donation” that will help offset food costs for its food bank and School Fuel programs, which support thousands of community members and local students each month.
“These are the type of funds that are required for us to be able to purchase those items and make sure we're able to support those individuals,” Peacock said.
Anywhere from 60 to 200 cars show up to the car club’s weekly meetings, and Peacock said it was “wonderful” to see an entire community come together to support the Sharing Place.
“As I was walking around on Friday, kind of taking a look at all the vehicles, what struck me is as important from that event is that they have an established community of car enthusiasts,” he said. “They've created this great sense of community.
“That resonated with me – this is a wonderful group of individuals that have kind of come together throughout the summer, and their community is supporting our community, and that was pretty cool," said Peacock.
