For the first time in over two years, Moose Jaw’s Hillcrest Church’s Better Together Food Drive will return to an in-person event. To make this year more special, it will be their 17th year putting on the food drive.  

On Oct. 31, the church will canvas the city, going door-to-door from 6-9 p.m. collecting food, monetary, and any other generous donations people within the community are willing to give, with everything collected going to support the Moose Jaw and District Food Bank.  

“The food that is donated that night to the food bank is what sustains us all year round,” says Deann Little from the Moose Jaw and District Food Bank. “It has a tremendous impact on our food bank with how much we can give out, how healthy we can make the hampers for our clients, etc. This is one way that we can continue to help many households in our community day after day and month after month.” 

With it being on Halloween night, people may want to donate candy and sweet treats, but the food bank has other items in mind that will go a long way. 

Those items include canned meat, canned vegetables, pork ‘n beans, cereal and oatmeal, sidekicks, Ichiban noodles, canned fruit, pasta sauce, canned soup, kraft dinner, hamburger helper, bagged pasta, and bagged or boxed rice.  

“Most of that is items that go into each and every hamper. We hand out and help over 400 households a month. We appreciate it if you can only give one can or only $5, or if you could give a whole box to us or $1,000, we appreciate and are grateful to everybody that is making a donation to help us,” adds Little.  

Going from house to house in one night is no small feat and that’s why the Hillcrest Church has an army of volunteers to assist with the donation retrieval process. Daycee Richardson with the Hillcrest Church says that they are always in need of volunteers that can help in a couple of different ways.  

“The first that we want to stress is that we love to see everyone participate by giving something to the food bank, it doesn’t have to be a lot. Secondly, we do have an army of about 400 volunteers that have to go door to door and then later sort food at the fairgrounds.” 

Those interested in volunteering for the Better Together Food Drive can reach out to the church at hillcrestmj.com/fooddrive to sign up or call 306-692-5600.  

Richardson adds that they will be distributing bags to Moose Jaw households around Oct. 25., to fill with non-perishable food items.  

On the night of Oct. 31, volunteers will be clearly visible once they approach your door to pick up what you have prepared for the food drive and will also wait a few moments for people to grab the donation from inside their house.  

If you’re not going to be home on Oct. 31, they’re asking residents to either leave their donation on their front porch or step and that it is clearly marked for the food drive. If they forget or miss the food drive, people can also bring their donations down to the food bank after the fact.  

Both Richardson and Little want to say a big thank you in advance to the Moose Jaw community for their continued support and generosity for the event.  

You can listen to full interview both Richardson and Little had with Mix 103's Morning Show host, Calum McAnally below: