Kelowna and Lake Country Mounties are overwhelmed with the support from the community during the 3rd Annual RCMP 'Cram the Cruiser' event this Saturday in Lake Country.
Both regular and auxiliary members of the RCMP, RCMP volunteers, along with Sgt. Sam Brown, also known as Sammie the Bear, were on location at Cooper's Foods with marked police vehicles, inviting the public to “Cram the Cruiser” with non-perishable food donations.
This year members of the Lake Country Volunteer Fire Department partnered up with police and came out to support this great cause for the community and served chilli and a bun for donations to the food bank. Cash and cheque donations were also accepted, and all donations raised solely benefited the Lake Country Food Bank.
"Our largest donation this year came from Keith and Loretta Stutters, of Stutters Disaster Kleenup in Kelowna, who donated $2,000 to the Lake Country Food Bank," said Const.. Jesse O'Donaghey. "Also Todd Ryder, the manager of the Cooper's Foods in Lake Country, generously donated hundreds of the pre-packaged bags of food items for the food bank including the $5.00 raised for each of them."
The winner of the grand prize donated by WestJet, a travel voucher for 2 return WestJet flights anywhere WestJet flies was Bretta Lawton of Lake Country.
Phyllis MacPherson, the manager of the Lake Country Food Bank, took time to visit all the volunteers at the event and said, "I fell in love with this community over 30 years ago, it is the amazing people of this community who cause me to continue loving it."
"The Kelowna and Lake Country RCMP and the Lake Country Food Bank would like to thank all the sponsors who made this event a huge success which include, the Kelowna Rockets, the Delta Grand Okanagan Resort, Costco Wholesale, L'Isola Bella Bistro, Cooper's Foods, the Lake Country Calendar, Nor-Val Rentals, Okanagan Portable Signs and of course WestJet," said Cst. Jesse O'Donaghey. "Thank-you to everyone who took the time to come out, support our cause and give back to the community, your generosity this year was overwhelming."
Together we raised a total of 2,646 lbs of donated items, along with $5,336 in cash and cheque solely for the Lake Country Food Bank.