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The Edmonton Food Bank welcomed two new forklifts from Leavitt Machinery after a March community fundraiser that raised $25,000 in just five days.
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“At the Food Bank we’re always in need of food, funds and friends; we have our volunteers and our great food donors but behind the scenes, of course, we have trucking and warehousing and power equipment needs so this really helps us getting the logistics behind the scene happening,” said Majorie Benz, Executive director of Edmonton Food Bank.
Benz explains that back in December they realized that one of their two older forklifts was unrepairable and that they couldn’t even get parts for it.
So they held a fundraiser to buy two new forklifts back in March that had a month-long deadline — but the community came through faster than expected and the Food Bank met the goal in just five days, using the money to get new machines.
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“It surprised me people throughout the pandemic have been very caring and kind in many ways and I think that we as a community need to celebrate that as well,” said Benz.
The forklifts are very important to the inner workings of the Food Bank; they are going to be used at the main facility lifting and moving the food that feeds over 21,000 people every month.
“To give you a sense of growth pre-COVID we’d handle about three million kilograms of food roughly and this year we may top five million,” said Benz.
Leavitt Machinery supplied the forklifts and ,they will also be helping the Food Bank with the service of the machinery.
“People have really come to the table and Leavitt has been helpful through the whole process and made a commitment to help us move forward with this too,” said Benz.
