From food sorting to the Christmas Harvest: 10 years of support and collaboration at Moisson Montréal

For the tenth consecutive year, more than 250 volunteers gathered on the last Saturday before Christmas to prepare emergency food assistance for Montrealers in need. Elected officials from the municipal, provincial and federal levels, including Denis Coderre, Robert Poëti, Hélène David, Kathleen Weil, Stéphane Dion and many more, joined the large human chain that packaged 12,350 emergency food bags, driven by the encouragement of host MC Gilles and the sounds of La Bottine Souriante.

This year, our traditional holiday food sorting event was renamed "Christmas Harvest" to better reflect the tremendous efforts made during this difficult season to help families in need. This 10th edition was part of the "Feed the Holiday Spirit" campaign, which enables local businesses to organize food drives on behalf of Moisson Montréal. Between October 15-December 20, over 230 companies from every industrial sector offered their support to Montreal's largest food bank by organizing non-perishable food drives with their employees. This is up from 213 companies in 2014.

"This campaign could not have been made possible without the support and involvement of our partners in the food industry—Bonduelle, Cascades, Maple Leaf, Metro, La Petite Bretonne, Paramount Paper and Sager Foods, to name just a few—who have once again answered the call by donating various basic products," explained Julie Bourbonnière, Director, Communications and Fundraising at Moisson Montréal. "This year, thanks to companies such as BMO (921 kg), FTQ (618 kg), L'Académie Marie-Claire (528 kg) and Société de gestion Cogir (410 kg in total for the 10 participating offices), we were able to collect a total of 13 tons of foodstuffs."

The senior management at Moisson Montréal is thrilled to see such a show of solidarity repeated over the last ten years, enabling this organization to distribute even more provisions before Christmas. This year, the food bank was able to deliver emergency food aid to more than 147 organizations in the form of 16,000 food baskets put together by our volunteers. These baskets contain 16 basic items, including rice, pasta, hygiene products, sugar, juice, etc. Each basket can feed up to four people and comes with other foodstuffs, such as fresh fruit and vegetables donated by community organizations.

Thanks to the generous sponsors who helped make the "Feed the Holiday Spirit" campaign a success and who participated in the 10th annual "Christmas Harvest". Also, thanks to La Petite Bretonne for providing the 7,000 reusable bags needed for the emergency food aid operation. The corporate food drives were facilitated by a transportation sponsor, Location Légaré, who greatly helped the "Feed the Holiday Spirit" campaign by letting Moisson Montréal use three delivery vehicles, free of charge, for pick-up of foodstuffs.

About Moisson Montréal
A non-profit organization founded in 1984, Moisson Montréal is today the largest food bank in Canada. Through its centre for collecting, sorting and distributing emergency food assistance, the organization allocates more than 1,000 tons of food per month to close to over 250 accredited community organizations on the Island of Montreal. In turn, these organizations provide food assistance to 146,000 people, including close to 34,000 children between the ages of 0 and 5.

Moisson Montréal receives funding and supplies mainly through donations. Its operations require the collaboration of nearly 8,000 volunteers each year and result in the redistribution of about 13 000 tons of foodstuffs, representing a total value of close to $61 million. Moisson Montréal has won two awards for its Food Recovery Program in Supermarkets: the 2015 Corporate Citizenship (Supply category) award from Novae and the Élixir (Coup de Coeur category) prize from PMI. For additional information: www.moissonmontreal.org

SOURCE MOISSON MONTREAL