LAKE COUNTRY – Not all of the money is there but that hasn’t stopped shovels from hitting the ground this week to build a new food bank in Lake Country. Those behind the project say it could be a risky move but volunteers are confident that with the community’s support, it will all work out.
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The current facility, located at the back of the old Winfield Elementary School, has little room. Food has to be kept in storage units outside.
However, volunteers have made it work for over a decade until they were told the building was up for sale. Then, a fundraising effort to build a new one began.
That fundraising effort received a huge boost when the Lake Country Rotary Club entered the food bank project into a contest.
“From winning the Aviva Community Fund, a $100,000 grant, and then finding out in order to receive that money, we had to use it by the end of the year, we had to get started,” explains Patty Garrett, President of the Lake Country Rotary Club.
With that deadline, the decision was made to start the project, even though they still need to raise nearly $200,000 more.
“We are still out there looking for more community and business donations to help us reach the final goal and be able to complete the project in its entirety,” says Garrett.
Trades students from Okanagan College’s Vernon campus are constructing the building through a four month practicum.
The Okanagan College Students are expected to take the building from concrete foundation to a building with a roof, doors and windows installed before they return to their classrooms in July.
Garrett says they hope to be in the new building by December but until then, they’ll use the current facility.
She says the worst case scenario is that the building could sit unfinished on the inside until the remainder of the money comes in.
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