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Stuff the Bus food drive realizes its biggest year yet

Natalie Pressman
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Another year of the Yellowknife Stuff the Bus food drive is in the books and organizers say 2020 was the most successful year yet.  

Moose FM has been running the event from the Yellowknife Co-op for 15 years, inviting residents to purchase $25 food hampers, which the station donates to the Yellowknife Food Bank. 

Christina Silzer, Elizabeth Gillard, and Jahad Kourti volunteered Saturday to sell food hampers at the 15th annual Stuff the Bus event.
Natalie Pressman/NNSL photos

Each year, the Co-op grocery store assembles the $25 hampers, adding rice, crackers, beans, and other food items based on the YK Food Bank’s needs. Saturday’s event, “stuffed the bus” with 700 food hampers. That exceeded last year’s 450 hampers, and Moose FM’s 2020 goal of 600. 

Greg Komarnicky, Moose FM’s programming director, said staff at the radio station “couldn’t believe how much the community came together.”

Given the difficult year 2020 has been for many, he said the Moose FM team wanted to make their 15th drive bigger than ever and “step up to help any way (they) could.”

The bus, he said, was as full as he's seen it.

“It was just amazing,” he said. 

Komarnicky described business owners and residents offering their time as volunteers and donating personal food items beyond the $25 hampers. He recalled one shopper coming up to the Moose FM table, leaving his full grocery cart and walking away. 

“We had to check with him a few times to make sure we wasn’t coming back (for the food),” Komarnicky said.  

Moose FM exceeded its goal with 700 food hampers donated to the YK Food Bank and YWCA last weekend. "It was a very full bus," said programming director, Moose FM programming director Greg Komarnicky.

One hundred of the food hampers were donated to the Yellowknife YWCA, and the remaining 600 to the Yellowknife food bank. The Co-op also put together $15 “personal hygiene” packages that shoppers could purchase for shelters around town.  

Justin Nelson, general manager of the Yellowknife Co-op, agreed that this year’s drive was “probably the most successful Stuff the Bus we’ve had.”

He said residents are always generous with their donations, but “this year was a little more special.”

“We’ve come together as a community to fight Covid and make sure no one goes through the holiday season hungry,” he said. “It certainly makes me proud to be a Yellowknifer.”