For three months, students from Okanagan College’s Trades program have been laying the foundations and setting up the walls of a new building for the Lake Country Food Bank. Last week, a crane hoisted the roof sections into place.
The building is now ready for installation of doors and windows. Building manager Tom Roth expects to reach “lock-up” – completion of the exterior construction – by the end of June.
As of this week the Okanagan College students will have put in over 6,000 hours of labour on the new building.
For their last day on the job, June 26th, Okanagan College’s culinary program will prepare a celebration lunch for the students. The Rotary Club of Lake Country will barbecue hamburgers and hot dogs for Lake Country residents. There is no charge, but donations would be welcome.
Funding is still short by between $50,000 to $150,000, depending on the quality of interior finishing required.
Although Rotary has taken leadership in raising funds for the new Food Bank Building, it is not exclusively a Rotary project. It’s a community project, insists Rotary’s Bob Rymarchuk, who has spent much of the last four years organizing support.
“We’ve got it this far,” Rymarchuk says. “Now we need the community to step up to the plate and provide the final funding – whether it’s by donating money, or by donating services and materials.”
If the funding comes in, Food Bank volunteers should be able to start preparing for the Christmas rush in the new building by mid-November, with the formal opening in early December.
The district of Lake Country provided the land for the new building; the Aviva Insurance Fund provided a grant of $100,000; other fund-raising efforts have raised another $150,000. The Rotary Club of Lake Country, having taken the lead in organizing this project, asks the community to finish the job with donations of money, services, or supplies.
For information about donating time, skills, or materials, contact Bob Rymarchuk at 250-766-1098.