Niverville Food Bank in the green after generous community donations

Niverville Helping Hands Food Bank has only been open at their new location for three-months and already their Board Chair says they’ve hit their target goal for the year.  

Larissa Sandulak says they have been blown away by the generous donations of the community.  

“We had a very ambitious goal of getting all our rent expenses fundraised in about 3 months and we exceeded our goal, and it was just amazing the support from the business community just completely floored us. It's an incredible blessing to be able to know that all of our overhead expenses will be completely covered. And now there's no questions about budgets or having to compromise on anything as we go forward into the winter season.” 

Sandulak says, while their fiscal year ends in August 2024, they will not say no to more monetary donations.  

“We have some other projects lined up here. We are looking at partnering with some local councilors in the area as we'd love to have that be a service that we could help either cover or subsidize for people that are needing some mental and emotional health support.” 

She notes they are also looking at offering some classes at our local Rec Centre.  

“Like meal planning or help with accounting at tax time, that kind of stuff. We have lots of projects that we will be accepting donations toward for the rest of the winter.” 

Earlier this summer, Sandulak told Steinbachonline that Helping Hands had plans on adding rooms to the food bank space. 

“Right now, we are hoping to get one room ready over the winter here, but we have some other irons in the fire with different spaces and how to accommodate some different needs.” 

To help with those expansion plans, she is grateful for help from the towns latest fundraising efforts.  

Sandulak is grateful to everyone who purchased a Tim Horton’s Holiday Smile Cookie last week.  

“Thank you to everyone who has supported our cookie campaign. We successfully raised $2,845.”  

She adds, “Everyone I spoke to was really excited. It was a good excuse to get our little treats. We had church staff members buy some for their meetings. We had the Niverville Nighthawks sell them at their game. And yeah, I think everybody had a lot of fun with it.”  

Sandulak notes that half the proceeds will be going to Helping Hands and will be used to set up a computer station at the Food Bank so that their patrons can access the internet.

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