Aid warehouse in Plum Coulee to stay open

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This article was published 13/05/2021 (1968 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE president of the Plum Coulee Chamber of Commerce applauds an aid organization for reversing its decision to close its southern Manitoba warehouse and move operations to Winnipeg.

Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba recently said it will remain at its warehouse and shipping facility in the town, after announcing in January that the facility would close on June 30.

“It would have been a big loss to our area,” said chamber president Moire Porte, a retired school division employee.

“They didn’t talk to the chamber but they heard from a lot of volunteers.”

Volunteers and supporters from across southern Manitoba expressed their displeasure at the closure of the facility, said Darryl Loewen, executive director of Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba.

“Folks were very disappointed in January and we knew they would be,” Loewen said from his Winnipeg office.

“We were planning to close a facility, not a program.”

Since 2004, the provincial and national arms of the Christian aid and development agency shared the 670-square-metre warehouse in Plum Coulee, about 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg. Materials such as comforters, school supplies and personal hygiene items from across Western Canada were sent there to be packed into containers for international shipping.

Loewen said Mennonite Central Committee Canada has moved its warehouse operations to New Hamburg, Ont., and Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba will rent about half of the Plum Coulee warehouse for its work.

Porte said the initial decision to close felt harsher under COVI19 restrictions, which limited the number of volunteers who could sew blankets or prepare shipments. During shutdowns, Porte packaged up projects and delivered them to regular volunteers in nearby communities so they could work from home.

“If we would have closed, those seniors would have nothing to do,” said Porte, one of dozens of regular volunteers.

The reversed decision also keeps local supporters engaged with the international relief work by packing relief and health supplies or sewing blankets, said Gord Letkeman, who will lose half of his job on June 30 but will stay on as activity co-ordinator at the warehouse.

“Blankets are the heart and soul of MCC,” said Letkeman of the many handmade comforters sewn and shipped from Plum Coulee.

He said the facility will continue its paper recycling operation, where discarded books are stripped of their covers and spines and the pages are sold to a local insulation company.

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