Hot on the heels of their Costume Karaoke event, Burlington Helping Burlington, alongside Florian Realty Team, will be hosting a “Fill the Truck” event on Saturday, Nov. 4 at North Burlington Baptist Church.
Between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., families can join in the fun for the price of non-perishable food item donations or cash donations. There will be clowns (non-scary ones, unless you’re coulrophobic), hot chocolate, balloon-twisting, games, face-painting, and opportunities for selfies with superheroes. Burlington Helping Burlington t-shirts will also be sold at Saturday’s event; your purchase also gives you the opportunity to win a prize, like a kid’s bike or a photography session for your family.
The Florian Realty Team has been doing weekly food drives since 2020. Andrea Florian and her team began putting the call out on social media that they would be doing COVID-friendly porch pick-ups for any food and/or clothing donations every Friday. This week, their “Friday Food Drive” pick-ups will all go towards filling up an Access Storage cube van at the Fill the Truck event on Saturday.
Andrea Florian of Florian Realty Team is very excited to be collaborating with the Burlington Helping Burlington (BHB) team. “The group has new energy…[and] I have learned very quickly in a few short days that you don’t say no to Julie,” says Florian of Julie Neal, one of the BHB team. She says that Neal’s energy for connecting people, organizing — and making everyone at the Costume Karaoke event last week — is impressive. “Within less than a second of talking to her, I was in,” Florian says of their initial conversation about the Fill the Truck event.
For her part, Neal says she’s just a civilian hoping to help capitalize on the spirit of giving that Burlington already has to work towards BHB’s “lofty goal of [raising] $20,000.” Neal is pulling on her event planning background (though she’s a teacher now, as that work “fills her heart”) and connections she’s made through her family’s previous charity events for the Fill the Truck event.
Indeed, it was her family’s various charitable projects that led to Michael Desjardins, of Pets N Groom and one of the Burlington Together Facebook page administrators, contacting her to ask if she would join the Burlington Helping Burlington team. During the pandemic, Neal, her husband, and older son Emmett ran a four-week food and bottle drive that saw cars lining up down the street to drop off donations. Then, a more organized food and bottle drive after that at North Burlington Baptist Church, who kindly donated the use of their parking lot, tables, and chairs, followed. The family raised $8000 in bottles for the Compassion Society and 2000 lb of food for the Burlington Food Bank. Access Storage’s Ron Lambert donated the use of a vehicle for that event, too.
There was also an event for Reach Out Centre for Kids (ROCK) at Uptown Social House, spearheaded by Emmett, then only 12 years old, in response to his own struggles with mental health and bullying during the pandemic. That event, which was supported by the local group Burlington Dads, raised $11,000 for ROCK. One of the people who attended Emmett’s event was Michael Desjardins, who then thought of Neal when the Burlington Together administrators were pulling together their Burlington Helping Burlington team.
Which leads us back to Fill the Truck. North Burlington Baptist Church (at 1377 Walkers Line) stepped up again to donate their parking lot as the event location. As well as Access Storage, other local businesses are lending their support, too: Luk’s Diner is donating cookies, and Save the Day is offering up soup (Chef Stef will be making loaded baked potato soup, says Neal). Neal is also very excited that KX 94.7 FM’s Toff and Melissa have agreed to give the Fill the Truck event a shout-out on air, as has LITE 92.1 FM.
“Everyone is coming together,” says Neal. “I love our team.”
In the month that BHB has been active, they are already showing how, in Florian’s words, “many hands can make good things happen.” They’ve so far weighed in 1400 lb of food donations and have reached $5000 of their $20,000 goal, which will go towards local organizations like Woodview Mental Health and Autism Centre, Carpenter Hospice, Shifra Homes, ROCK, and more.
Florian is hoping that this event will also bring some new faces into the fold for Florian Realty Team’s weekly food drive — and vice versa, that their regulars will participate in this week’s event as well.
Both Florian and Neal note the challenge of the rising cost of food and the impact it has on everyone, even those with stable jobs. They also share a belief in the importance of community working together to help community. Says Florian, “We’re not going to solve world hunger overnight, but we can certainly go to bed at night feeling like we did our best…but if [we] can make a small difference, that matters.”
And both point out the good they see in Burlington, and are hoping that Burlington will come out on Saturday, Nov. 4 to help fill the truck.
Because, as Neal says, “That’s what we do in Burlington. We help.”
Head down to North Burlington Baptist Church between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. this Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023, with your food or cash donation and enjoy the entertainment, refreshments, and community spirit.
Update notice: this article has been updated since the original publication to reflect the total weight of food donations so far collected by Burlington Helping Burlington.
