Crestview Scouts donate 3,000 pounds of food

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This article was published 22/06/2020 (2021 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A local scout troop has donated over 3,000 pounds of food to Winnipeg Harvest.

The 1st Crestview Scout Group collected food donations from several neighbourhoods, making two massive donations on May 2 and June 6.

The scouts were blown away by the sheer volume of donations.

Cameron Van De Vijsel, a scout who collected food in the Sturgeon Heights area, said he didn’t anticipate the drive going so well.

“I was thinking, people might not be willing to give away food. It might be like the ‘hoarding toilet paper,’ thing, they don’t want to give anything away because they might need it later,” Van De Vijsel said. “I was very surprised. It’s very nice to see so many people donate food.”

Van De Vijsel put up flyers within his neighbourhood and stuck them in mailboxes, asking residents to donate food for Winnipeg Harvest.

Residents were asked to put food donations out on their front porches for the scouts to collect. This allowed the group to give back to the community, while following the physical distancing guidelines put in by the province.

Flyers were handed out on April 30 and June 4.

Van De Vijsel handed out roughly 120 flyers for both donation drives. He said around a quarter of those homeowners donated food.

Quinn Marshall, a scout who collected donations in Westwood, was amazed at the generosity shown by her neighbors. The residents of almost half of the homes she contacted put out donations.

Marshall thanked her community for stepping up.

“It’s a bad situation, people are losing jobs, some people are already struggling with eating well. I was really proud of my community, we got so many donations,” Marshall said. “I’m just amazed, thank you all so much.”

The donations were brought to Crestview School, where they were loaded into a scout leader’s car and driven to Winnipeg Harvest.

Ian McCausland, one of the scout leaders, helped organize the food drive. He was proud of the scouts for serving their community, and called on others to do the same.

“One of the values of our (scout program) is there’s a strong element of community service. We’re always challenging our scouts to think of ways to give back to their communities. And just because you’re not a scout, doesn’t mean you can’t give back,” McCausland said. “We challenge everyone to donate or volunteer their time. It’s important that we stick together, now more than ever, and do stuff for each other during these challenging times.”

McCausland wanted to thank their communities for being so generous.

1st Crestview Scouts has been active for over 50 years within the St. James-Assiniboia community. The group usually meets Thursday evenings at Crestview School, but due to the pandemic, most of their activities have been cancelled.

For more information, visit scouts.ca. The 1st Crestview Scouts can be found on Facebook.