SASKATOON – Food banks will be allowed to receive the benefits of grain overdeliveries by producers as farmers respond to a charity initiative.
Western farmers will be able to help eastern fishermen, fish plant workers and their families through grain deliveries donated directly to eastern food banks. The Canadian Association of Foodbanks will soon be granted the right to receive Canadian Wheat Board grains as donations for any food bank. Producers will be able to assign them as overdeliveries on their permit books.
The foodbanks organization has lobbied to accept farmers’ donations of grain for the past nine years. The process was accelerated when a Leader, Sask., pharmacist and former grain producer, Gordon Stueck, offered to donate $500 in flour to Newfoundland food banks if someone could mill the flour and find a way to make the long distance delivery. CSP Foods of Saskatoon volunteered its milling and transportation services to supply the flour and truck it to Winnipeg where the national foodbanks association took over.
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Repaying a favor
During the 1930s depression, easterners donated food, clothing and other essentials to the Prairies and Stueck felt his donation was the repayment of a long-overdue favor.
Stueck’s donation received so much attention that he was deluged with offers of grain, trucking and cash for strapped easterners. CSP Foods agreed to donate the milling and transport of up to 2,000 more bushels of wheat.
A group of farmers from Climax, Sask. has assembled the first 1,200 bushels and found a trucking company from Vanguard, Sask., to haul the grain to Saskatoon at no charge.
“I’ve forwarded cheques for nearly $900 to the food bank and have had one farmer offer 1,000 bushels of grain in a single shot,” said Stueck. “I think we’ve really hit on a way farmers can help other Canadians, even in these troubled times.”
