In the face of the ongoing disaster in Fort McMurray, a local co-op is doing what it can to help.
“One thing that we’ve done is we’ve donated 792 litres of fuel to volunteers who are going to and from helping the evacuees,” says Renee Dick, Marketing Coordinator for the Vanderhoof and Districts Co-op Association.
And that’s not all they plan to do. The Co-op is now accepting donations to the Red Cross through their cashiers.
“If you’re coming in to one of our locations, you can go to any of our cashiers, make a donation through them and the Vanderhoof and District Coop will match all of the donations that come into our stores through that means to donate to the Red Cross.”
The Vanderhoof and District Co-op Association will match donations made at any of their locations.
“We will match all of the donations that come in through all of our locations combined,” says Dick. “If somebody goes into our Quesnel location and makes a donation there, we will match it. Same thing in Houston, Terrace. All of our locations in Vanderhoof and Prince George.”
She says the donation program will continue for the foreseeable future.
“As a Coop, we’re all about community and even though Fort McMurray isn’t a part of our trading district, when there’s a need, we want to do what we can to help the people that are affected by it,” Dick says. “This is one thing that we can do.”
So if your gas tank is empty or you need to grab some groceries and you’d like to help the people of Fort McMurray, you might want to visit your local coop location this weekend. You can find a list of the co-op’s locations here.