E.L.F. food drive twice as successful as last year

This year’s Everybody Loves Firefighters food drive yielded more than twice as much as last year’s, a food bank representative said.

Havre Food Bank Manager Lorna Bjerga said the 6,597 pounds of food gathered Wednesday and Thursday from Havreites is “extremely better” than the nearly 3,000 pounds gathered last year.

“This kind of poundage will last me until June,” Bjerga said Friday.

The E.L.F. food drive has been going on, sometimes interrupted, for more than 30 years, Bjerga said.  After being canceled two years ago, it was moved up three weeks in hopes that better weather would result in more charity. But last year didn’t go as well as Bjerga hoped it would.

“Maybe people didn’t know,” she said.

So this year, Bjerga said, she got a jumpstart on the advertising for the food drive, so people would know. She said the flyers and word of mouth started about a month before volunteers and firefighters hit the streets. And it seems to have worked, she said.

Wednesday, west Havre — Fifth Avenue was the dividing line — gave 2,119 pounds. Thursday, east Havre was twice as generous, donating 4,478 pounds of food.

The food bank will make food baskets for people who’ve run out of food, she said. Bjerga said the baskets are custom-made, the number of people in a family determining how many pounds of food go into a basket.

A family of eight receives between 80 and 100 pounds, she said.

The baskets include peanut butter, canned fruits, canned vegetables, canned soup, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti sauce, noodles or pasta, cereal and crackers. A meat box is also included — frozen chicken and hamburger.

Despite an unemployment rate that’s sunk further down and Havre having a worker shortage problem, the Havre Food Bank has gradually increased its food output, Bjerga said, adding that even with a job, it’s difficult to feed a family on minimum wage.

Bjerga said the only plans of expansion for the food bank at the time is, hopefully, a new walk-in freezer.

If anyone’s house was missed, or if someone would like to donate more, Bjerga said, food can be dropped off at the Havre Food Bank, the fire hall or the District 4 Human Resources Development Council building at 2229 Fifth Avenue.