What weighs 6,500 pounds?
A quick Google search reveals that's the weight of the engine of the Blackbird spy plane, the fastest and highest-flying plane on record. An armour-plated 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan convertible used to shuttle U.S. president Harry Truman weighed 6,500 pounds, and so did a three-year-old Niagara Falls aquarium killer whale named Kiska.
Trivial facts, yes, but there's nothing trivial about the 6,500 pounds of food eight families collected in the Hart Highway areas neighbourhoods last week. Their 10th annual Hart Food Drive was a record-setter, and on Friday they delivered their last bag of groceries to the St. Vincent de Paul drop-in centre.
The donated food represents half the food items the drop-in centre expects it will need to feed hungry people for the next year. Food drive organizers Lonnie Dupras and Sally Balazs determined the total weight by going to the Foothills landfill site to have all the collection vehicles weighed while empty, then loaded with food.
"What a great neighbourhood we have, it was a huge success," said food drive organizer Lonnie Dupras. "We added just over 200 extra houses this year, which really brought our total up. That put us at 1,046 houses this year, but because we had so many volunteers this year [30] it didn't take that long. The longest route only took an hour and 45 minutes."
When the project started in 2003, St. Vincent de Paul Society president Bernie Goold told Dupras the drop-in centre at 1220 Second Ave., faced closure due to the lack of donated food.
"These two sets of parents and their crying kids showed up that year, and we've been doing it every since," said Dupras. "They really count on us now, so it's something we have to do. It's a real feel-good project because you know you're helping so many different people. We started it for the kids to do something but everyone benefits from it.
"They give away quite a bit of the food in their hampers but they use quite a bit of the canned goods in the kitchen as well. Every month they don't have donations they have to spend between $5,000 and $7,000 of their own money.
"Who knew when we started it, it would grow so big?"
Dupras is willing to help out other members of the community who would like to organize their own neighbourhood food drives. Call her at 250-640-2520.
