Get your food donations ready for Florian Realty Team and Burlington Helping Burlington’s second annual Fill the Truck Family Festival, taking place on June 8 at North Burlington Baptist Church, to collect food for the Burlington Food Bank.
From 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., bring the whole family to join in on games and activities and a barbeque. Magician Nicholas Gordon will perform his magic, and 905 Game Zone is back again this year for video gaming fun.
New this year will be a small group of local vendors; part of the proceeds will go to the Burlington Food Bank. You’ll be able to browse for candles, Epicure goodies, and gemstone bracelets, or purchase some mystery grab bags put together by Burlington Helping Burlington. Look out for one of the members of the Burlington Lions Club in costume as — you guessed it — a lion.
Andrea Florian of the Florian Realty Team is excited about this event, and said that they are “looking to do just that little bit more this year.”
She says there have been great connections made from last year’s event, and some of her clients have already told her that they’ve been stocking up on food items on sale to help fill up that Burlington Food Bank truck. And there have been donations for barbeque supplies already.
This year, the team also reached out to local schools, and have some high school volunteers coming along to help. For Florian, it’s all about reaching out to everyone in the community, of every age.
North Burlington Baptist Church has also been very supportive; “I’m blown away by their generosity and how committed they are to the community,” says Florian.
And while the purpose of the event is to fill up that truck with food for the Burlington Food Bank — and at this time of year in particular, as food bank supplies tend to dwindle in the warmer months — but it is also about the community. When Florian and Burlington Helping Burlington’s Julie Neal began their discussions last year prior to the first Fill the Truck event, they agreed that a key piece was “getting families out, and enjoying the community.”
The beauty of this event, says Florian, is that “it makes it affordable for families to come out and participate, enjoy the afternoon, even if [their donation] is just bringing a can of soup.”
Burlington Helping Burlington is a newly formed non-profit that was born out of a three-month food and cash drive last fall to support a number of local charities. The group decided to continue on that mission, organizing events like this and their recent Cars, Cocktails, and Compassion event to support the Burlington Food Bank, the Compassion Society, and other agencies.
For Florian and her team, who began a weekly food drive during the pandemic, their community work is important in building connections both within their team and in the wider community: “We live and work here, we sell the big homes and the ones that people don’t want to sell [but have to], we see the community every day, so it’s so important for us to do this, to give back.”
And the connections they make, she says, “are so deep and so real. It’s so beautiful.”
To help Fill the Truck and enjoy the family fun, bring your donations to North Burlington Baptist Church (1377 Walkers Line) on Saturday, June 8, between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
