Five Hole For Food in Winnipeg

For a number of weeks prior to the charity event that was held this past Saturday, Illegal Curve had received a number of tweets from London Drugs and Five Hole For Food to come check it out so I decided to walk over and see what it was all about.  I had the opportunity to speak to volunteers from Five Hole For Food, Siloam Mission, London Drugs as well as Winnipeggers who were happy to support a good cause despite the inclement weather.

Jeff Veillette from Five Hole For Food explains more about the mission.

The weather conditions may not have been the best for a game of street hockey yesterday, but that didn’t stop Five Hole For Food and its attendees. For four hours yesterday, Hugo St just off of Corydon Avenue was turned into a fenced off rink as many exchanged food and cash donations for a chance to pick up a stick and play a couple of games.

Five Hole For Food is a group based out of Vancouver. Inspired by the sense of community seen during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, the team is in their fifth year of travelling across Canada, in an attempt to raise resources for local food banks in all of their stops. This year, the proceeds of their stop here in Winnipeg went to Siloam Mission.

The event itself went without a hitch. A friendly competition between a local resident and a London Drugs location left the Mission’s truck overflowing with food, along with the donations from those who came to play. Dozens of participants rotated throughout the afternoon, even continuing to play through heavy rain.

Winnipeg was Five Hole For Food’s eighth stop on their 2014 tour, previously visiting St. John’s, Haifax, Charlottetown, Saint John, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. They even played a game with the Canadian Navy on the HMCS Preserver’s flight deck, losing 35 hockey balls to the Atlantic Ocean in an hour.

Moving forward, the three-man road crew will be driving into Regina (July 14), Calgary (July 15), Edmonton (July 16), and Victoria (July 18),before finally arriving at home on July 19, taking over Vancouver’s famous Robson and Granville intersection. Five Hole For Food hopes to raise their 1 millionth pound of food in the organization’s history by the end of the tour.

To learn more about the organization check out Five Hole For Food website.