With food insecurity on the rise amid soaring inflation, a local car dealership is hoping to drive donations to the food bank.
As part of the Giving Tuesday campaign, Jim Wilson Chevrolet Buick GMC has agreed to match community donations made to The Sharing Place Food Centre over the course of November, up to a maximum of $10,000.
The donation will be given to the Sharing Place on Tuesday, Nov. 29. It will come on top of the dealership’s 13th annual Fill The Truck campaign, where staff members, customers, and community members fill the bed of a truck with non-perishable food items and financial donations to assist The Sharing Place with its busy holiday season.
Cassandra Minter, the dealership's marketing manager, said staff are well aware of increased needs in the community in recent years, and opted to run its Fill The Truck campaign a month early in 2022.
“We do understand that the need and the use of The Sharing Place has really increased in the last couple years,” Minter said. “We know that it makes a direct positive impact on the community, and the focus of the dealership has always been to support local. That’s who generally shops here, and that's our focus: to try to raise up our community within Orillia.”
Members of the public interested in contributing to the Fill The Truck campaign can bring non-perishable food items to the dealership through November. Information for how to donate to The Sharing Place, as well as a list of its most-needed food items may be found here.
Sharing Place executive director Chris Peacock applauded the Jim Wilson dealership for its Giving Tuesday campaign and continued support over the years.
“It’s wonderful. That's what the holiday season is about: coming together and supporting each other and connecting with your friends,” Peacock told OrilliaMatters. “The Jim Wilson community … that they've established, and their customers, are quite a community that has stepped up 13 years in a row, and it makes a huge impact.
“The consistency and the ability to have that commitment on an annual basis is just a testament to their organization, but it's also essential for us to operate our organization in a successful way, to be able to think long-term and plan long-term and make sure that we're sustainable,” he said.
The Sharing Place relies on community contributions to get by, Peacock said, noting the bulk of community donations goes directly into purchasing healthy food.
“A significant amount of the public donations that we receive go towards purchasing food,” he said. “The costs have increased significantly, as we are all well aware of, so the more funds we can receive from the public allows us to continue to to invest in healthy food and (be) able to to manage the increased costs of inflation.”
Peacock anticipates the Sharing Place, which has seen its traffic skyrocket in 2022, will continue to be busy moving forward.
“Without a shadow of a doubt, it just keeps on going ... the demand is there,” he said. “Until food costs and fuel costs and housing costs start to plateau, or income increases … we will continue to be busy,” he said.
Since beginning in 2012, the Giving Tuesday campaign has grown into a global movement encouraging communities to give back. With movements in over 80 countries, community members, businesses, not-for-profits, educational institutions, and more come together every November to do good in their communities.
The campaign has operated in Canada since 2013, and in 2021 it raised over $43 million nationally.
