Every donation makes a difference, SEHH supports 330 families

With 330 families regularly accessing the food bank in Steinbach, every donation has great value. 

Ken Dyck with South East Helping Hands was on hand this week to accept boxes of food donated by employees of Hylife.

Ken Dyck is presented with a tin worth $8,000 from Hylife employees.

“It’s wonderful to see that organizations are thinking about the food bank,” he says. “We're seeing it all over the place. Small businesses, big businesses, they're all coming. And (Hylife) leaving us an $8,000 check is nice, too, on top of that. So, we'll gladly take it, and we can gladly use it.” 

Hylife’s Sheldon Stott says the donation is through their 2nd annual Holiday Helpers program. 

“This is just another way that we can contribute in a meaningful way to our community,” Stott adds.

Ken Dyck says the donated food will be almost enough to fill 330 food hampers, that is the number of families that regularly access the food bank every two weeks.

Dyck says they appreciate working with various organizations and the public to make sure everyone has food on the table. 

SEHH acts like a distribution centre for food banks in the Southeast, offering items to places like Soup’s On, Steinbach Community Outreach, and food banks in smaller communities. Steinbach and area Animal Rescue also benefits from extra donations of food for dogs and cats. 

"Organizations helping other organizations,” says Dyck. “We try, and we are doing it. So, we’ll just keep plugging away the way we are.” 

Hank Klassen says it is a lot of work to get the hampers ready and organize volunteers. 

He appreciates each person who gives time, food and monetary donations. 

"If we can work together with everybody, then it works,” says Klassen.

He points out that 330 hampers are distributed every two weeks through SEHH, and that food helps to feed around 1,320 people. The next regular Food Bank Day is on Wednesday, January 4th.