Friday, December 23, 2016

Fort St. John Campaign

Fort St. John ran a very successful three day campaign from December 2-4th this year. With the overwhelming support of The United Way Of Northern British Columbia, Safeway, The Bell Media Group, Trojan Safety, Cat Rentals , The Salvation Army and many others, we were able to collect nearly a full trailer of food and a significant amount of cash for The Salvation Army in Fort St. John.

Safeway provided the campaign with specially packaged $5 and $10 bags that were geared towards filling the specific needs of the Food Bank. Safeway Store Manager (Stan The Man) ordered in pallets of these bags and then watched nervously to see how many would be left. He need not have been concerned, By mid day on Sunday, we had sold out the entire stock!

It cannot be stressed enough, how having a solid media partner anchoring the event makes all of the difference! Bell Media with their local stations The Bear 101.5 , CJDC, and Sun Media were on location all through the event doing on location broadcasting, interviews and updates several times an hour. With all of that support , the trailer started filling up fast!

No event can ever be successful with out the volunteers that drive it. To that end, we offer our sincere thanks to Brandi Cage from Rosenau, who toughed it out the entire three days, as well as Niki Hedges from United Way and the Salvation Army Team that were on hand selling bags and providing hot chocolate from their brand new Community Response Unit. We would also like to thank Trojan Safety for sponsoring the Hot dog and Burger by donation stand. They braved the wind and sub zero temperatures to make sure everyone had a full belly with their awesome mobile bbq!. We would also like to thank Cat Rentals for the tent that kept the whole thing covered. We had many other volunteers from Rosenau who in between working their shifts over at the shop came over and helped out as much as they could. Angie, Kelly, Jason, Marcel, Sam, Carol and Cody as well as some of our Family Members.









The Need is still strong in our communities and we thank all of those who stepped up to provide a hand up!






Monday, December 12, 2016

Chetwynd's First 18 Wheels Event!

The Community of Chetwynd saw an unusual sight on November 26th 2016. For the first time ever, 18 Wheels Of Christmas made an appearance there!. In a partnership between Aim Trucking, United Way, Chetwynd IGA, Chetwynd Fire Dept and many other groups, they had a very successful Food and Toy Drive!

Braving cold temperatures, frosty winds and a long day, volunteers were able to fill the floor of the trailer halfway with much needed donations for a Community and area hit hard with the economic slump.

All donations went to the Tansi Friendship Centre where they will be distributed to people from across the area.

We would especially like to thank Peace FM who were strong supporters of the event and braved the elements to help us get the message out.

People who donated were treated to Tim Hortons coffee and hot chocolate, cookie decorating and of course a visit with Santa Claus. Thank you all so much for your committment, time and willingness to make a difference.





Saturday, December 3, 2016

18 Wheels Dawson Creek, More Successful than ever !

Our 18 Wheels Of Christmas Event in Dawson Creek wrapped up on November 19th with our most successful year ever!

The two day event hosted by United Way brought in a total of 18 pallets of food and 4 skids of brand new quality toys as well as over $3,000 in cash donations!

No event on this scale can ever be successful without the support of the community and our partners! This year saw our local Dawson Creek Fire Department out in force as well as the Dawson Creek RCMP, Cat Rentals, United Way staff, Salvation Army volunteers and of course The Dawson Creek Co-Op. A huge helping hand this year from the local area banks as well. North Peace Credit Union, Bank Of Montreal, Royal Bank, TD Canada Trust, South Peace Credit Union and Scotia Bank took part with volunteers as well as activities in their bank branches. Many of the branches sold coupons for pre-packaged food bags! Our Mayor Bumstead even came out and braved the cold for a few hours, waving in the traffic.


As always, our Local Rosenau Staff came out in force! From Santa Claus (aka Blaine M) or Karen G who spent hours out on the street keeping the enthusiasm going or Rachel R who put in dozens of hours handing out flyers, decorating and contributing her time. We had many other staff members come out and help. A very special thanks to Karen B of Rosenau Transport and Emily G of United Way for the countless hours you both put into this event.


Most importantly, we thank the public. Without you and your generosity, these events could not happen, and lives cannot be changed. From the bottom of our hearts, on behalf of United Way, Dawson Creek Co-Op and Rosenau Transport, Thank You!




Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Calgary 18 Wheels of Christmas 2015…….most successful campaign ever!!!!!!

Alberta has reached a very low point in the economy, with tens of  thousands of Albertan's losing their jobs and probably experiencing a situation they never thought they would be in, using the Food Bank. 18 Wheels of Christmas Calgary found, even with the economic downturn, the giving from our communities to be at its highest.


We started in Okotoks for their annual Light Up event. 18 Wheels is becoming more involved in the community with the residents looking forward to seeing the trailer and helping to fill it. At the stroke of 9PM as the fireworks were beginning, Okotoks Food Bank volunteers arrived at the trailer and started loading the donations into their truck for distribution in the days following.

The next morning we were at the Lake Bonavista Promenade. We have been invited back every year from our inception in 2002 and have now been deemed a “Yearly Tradition” by Vyetta and Bev. These 2 ladies stand with us for the entire time we are there. Outside in temperatures sometimes so brutal you cannot feel any part of your body. The generosity of this community never fails to amaze.

The following week we were invited to Fluor's south Calgary office.  We have said it so many times before but this office of a thousand people is a community unto itself and their spirit of giving would be hard to find anywhere else. We look forward to being in the lobby of this building every year as their commitment to bettering the lives of others can’t be beat.

We did something quite different this year and it was a ton of fun!!! We were invited to team up with save-on-foods, 101.5 Kool FM, 95.3 The Peak and the Auburn Bay Community Association for their 2nd annual Parade of Lights!!!! There is nothing more fun than pushing shopping carts through the streets behind our 18 Wheels cube van and collecting food donations. Who knew a community could come together and be so generous while standing in the cold waiting for the floats. We had 6 volunteers pushing shopping carts collecting donations from the crowds on the street.  From all the donations we received we had to stop the truck and unload the carts multiple times because the carts were overflowing. We lost track on how many times the carts needed to be unloaded, that's how generous the community was!!!!! A young boy, maybe about 8, stepped forward and gave 1 dollar in change to one of our volunteers with the instructions “this is for the Food Bank”. He was the hero of the night.

With the help of Kool FM and The Peak, we parked the 18 Wheels of Christmas trailer for 48 hours at each Calgary save-on-foods stores over the course of a 4 week period. We had radio personalities, impromptu entertainment from local talent and of course the antics of Mr. and Mrs. Skippy to keep
everyone amused. Santa had a hard time containing the little Imps. Skippy and Brad Dryden of Kool mornings with Dryden and Michelle, hit it off from the beginning and what one didn’t think of to do the other one did which of course created havoc a few times.





It was hard work, cold at times, tiring at other times. Everything was worth it to see the faces of the representatives from the Calgary Food Bank when we delivered 56 skids of food completely filling every square inch of the trailer from the floor to the ceiling. We could not have been more proud when we presented our envelope with tax receipt requests and the fabulous donation from Rosenau Transport for $3,333.34.




The commitment shown by all our volunteers, drivers, mechanics, graphics department team and of course Rosenau Transport Ltd. helped to make our events successful and the Food Bank forever grateful.

Thank you for making 2015 such a success!!!!