Calgarians help charity replace stolen vehicle

It's been 16 months since the Community Kitchen Project (CKP) had their delivery truck stolen from the parking lot at their northeast warehouse. But now a brand new white truck with a refrigerated box on the back to haul food is parked at the loading dock.

The vehicle, a critical part of the operation to pick up food donations from businesses all over the city, was purchased with funds raised by the community to help replace the stolen vehicle.

Community Kitchen Project CEO Sundae Nordine  didn't expect donations to reach the $187,000 to fully cover the cost of the new truck, but Calgarians, led by the Rotary Club, came through for the organization with bells on.

"I am shocked but I'm not because I also know what Calgarians are like," she said. "They are just the most amazing people and they just support charities and I just thank them so very much."

TRUCK TRASHED

The truck was taken in August, 2021 and when Calgary police found it, it was in bad shape, trashed by the thieves. That left CKP without a vehicle to pick up and deliver food donations to its warehouse.

Nordine remembers immediately going into problem solving mode to keep the operation running smoothly.

"The first thing is that you need to get the food out to the people," she said. "We have over 400,000 people that are depending on us in the many programs we run so we reached out to Driving Force and got a rental."

Then Nordine put in an order for a new truck even though she didn't know where the money would come from for it because during the pandemic she knew it would take more than 12 months to have it delivered.

ROTARIANS STEP UP

Bill Lawless is a Rotarian with the Rotary Club of Calgary West who volunteers with his club to sort food at CKP.

"They let us know shortly after it was stolen so I immediately put together a communication to other clubs and asked who's interested," he said. "We were able to generate 11 of our 12 clubs here in Calgary to put money towards the purchase of the truck."

Lawless says all the Calgary clubs generate more than $2,000,000 annually for local charities. For this project they were able to raise a third of the purchase price of the new truck for CKP.

"All Rotarians like to believe that we're building a better world through what we do in each club," said Lawless. "It's a huge organization of 1.2 million members worldwide - over 30,000 clubs - but we're a service club and our motto is service above self."

'EVEN HAD A NEW TRUCK SMELL'

Garry Burridge has been driving trucks for 30 years and says the new truck is excellent.

"It was actually surreal when they told me it was a brand new truck and they weren't kidding," said Burridge. "Out of all the companies I've worked for, I've had two new trucks, this being the second one, it even had the new truck smell when I hopped in it."

Nordin is grateful that the money the charity generates now can be used to feed needy people around the city rather than going towards monthly truck payments.

"That's what was so beautiful and why I'm so grateful is that (the community has) stepped up and that they have given a gift to us so that we can continue to do what we're doing," she said.

The truck now has decals on the box recognizing many of the donors who paid for it. 

Learn more about CKP here:  www.ckpcalgary.ca