A week-long staff challenge at Synergy Credit Union in Lloydminster is busting the scales at the Salvation Army food bank with over 1600 items.
The internal contest got revved up by daily rhyming emails as management and frontline staff rolled up their sleeves to one-up each other in friendly fundraising of food, toiletries, diapers and other necessities.
Major Bond Jennings with the Salvation Army in Lloydminster was on hand to receive the Synergy Shares Good Fortune donation. In expressing his gratitude he explained the need for the ongoing community support.
“We’re putting out close to 55-60 hampers for families and individuals. We are still doing 25-30 seniors kits. We are still doing our 155 kids kits that we partner with the public schools for. So the demand is still there and we are still seeing new people coming to us.”
Heidi Mark with Synergy’s business and agriculture finance centre said they wanted to have a way to give back that didn’t happen around Christmas. So their staff challenge takes place around St. Paddy’s when food donations could be a bit slower.
The food challenge is now in its third year and this time Synergy staff sought to double-up on their previous efforts.
“We had a lot of competition among our peers – 100 per cent. It’s a feel good for us. The challenge that also went out was to see if we could double our product count from 2021. So remember it was 805. In the end our total tally per item was 1626,” says Mark.
Synergy staff took about 30-minutes off-loading the two vehicles that brought in the donation.