The final push to achieve turkey drive target The Rotary club collects funds to help buy 3,800 turkeys that go into the 4,100 food hampers distributed by the House of Friendship during the Christmas season.
The Kitchener-Conestoga Rotary Club (Ontario, Canada — D 7080) is scrambling to raise enough money to give a holiday dinner to people in need in the region of Waterloo, as the group enters the final week of its turkey drive campaign.
The Rotary Club set a fundraising goal of $375,000 for 2017 — $25,000 more than last year. With just seven days before Christmas, the club isn’t sure it will even be able to meet last year’s target.
“What it boils down to, in this very successful, booming, bustling community, is it’s really hard to believe that fully 1 in 20 families will need some help putting food on the table,” Mike Klein, chair of the Kitchener-Conestoga Rotary Club Turkey Drive told CBC’s K-W.
A $100 donation helps buy a Christmas hamper for a family in need while a $25 donation pays for a turkey, said Klein, adding that if the club isn’t able to meet its fundraising goal, “people just don’t get food on the table.”
‘Help us help everybody’
On Monday morning, the organisers said fundraising is at $161,000 compared to $179,000 at the same time last year.
The Rotary Club collects funds to help buy 3,800 turkeys that go into the 4,100 food hampers distributed by the House of Friendship and Klein said those who are most in need of the hampers are often newcomers to the area.
But with donations down 10 per cent from last year and local demand for food going up, the organisers hope one last push will help raise the funds needed.
“We are all asking the community members help us help everybody,” he said.
Source: CBC News
