PIERREFONDS — Kim Reid runs a food bank that feeds the poor living in the West Island.
During the holidays, his charity, called the On Rock Community Centre, receives steady donations.
But during the summer months, the pickings can get slim.
The food bank’s cupboard ended up finding help from an unlikely source: nine-year-old Dollard-des-Ormeaux resident Dustin Riff.
“He was watching the news with his mom and he saw this need that we had in the West Island as I was being interviewed,” Reid said.
“He apparently turned to his mom and said, ‘I want to help.”
Riff knew about the food bank because his mother’s employer donates to it. And after he saw Reid on the news, he hatched a plan: he’d raise $1,000 by collecting bottles and cans.
“It’s just sad that some people don’t have enough food and some people just can’t get some,” Riff said.
The first batch of bottles and cans Riff collected netted him about $13 that he brought to a supermarket, using flyers to find items that were on special. He brought those goods to On Rock during a time the charity was grateful to have them. By the end of the summer he had raised $541.95.
“To have a kid, who has some kind of sense that he can help his community by helping poor people, how do you not champion that?” Reid said.
While the West Island has long been a suburb of Montreal, Reid notes that it does contain its share of impoverished families. In addition to its food bank, the charity runs a dinner twice weekly where it feeds 200 households.
“I refer to them as the invisible poor, because the perception in the West Island is that they aren’t here,” Reid said. “People don’t see them until it’s pointed out to them.”
Riff’s mother admits that he didn’t find the easiest way to raise money.
“You have soda leaking all over your car, beer bottles rattling,” Shannon French laughed. “You’d open up the van, and the bags are falling out.”
Riff says his objective is raising $1,000.
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