Shania Twain Foundation donates $25K to western P.E.I. food bank before festival date
Board members were 'excited' and 'shocked' to learn about contribution, says president
Officials with a food bank in western P.E.I. say they were "shocked" to learn about a recent $25,000 donation from the Shania Twain Foundation.
Barb Ramsay-Desroches, the president of the board of directors for the West Prince Caring Cupboard, said the influx of cash will allow the organization to diversify the kinds of food items it can offer to clients.
"We tend to receive a lot of donations from the West Prince residents in terms of pantry items. We get a lot of canned goods, cereals, crackers," Ramsay-Desroches said.
"What this donation allows us to do is pick up items like milk and eggs, ground beef, bread and cheese — the items that typically don't come in during a food drive but are essential to providing healthy meals."
Twain holds a place near the top of the country music industry, having won five Grammys and sold more than 100 million records with songs such as Man, I Feel Like a Woman. She has never made a secret of the fact that her childhood in Timmins, Ont., involved times of family poverty when food was scarce.
Her foundation is making a series of $25,000 donations to local food banks as her 2025 tour takes her across North America, including a July 10 stop on P.E.I. to headline the Cavendish Beach Music Festival.
Speaking for the board, Ramsay-Desroches said its members were "excited and maybe a little shocked" to hear that Twain's foundation was making the contribution.
"I just think it's really special that someone of Shania Twain's stature, who's been so successful in her career, would think about making a donation like she's doing to the Caring Cupboard in Prince Edward Island."
Both costs and traffic increasing
The donation comes more than a year after the food bank said it needed sustained funding from the province, with a $60,000 loss projected for the 2024 year.
When asked about the organizations' financial struggles on Friday, Ramsay-Desroches said the food bank is indeed dealing with higher operational costs, but residents and businesses in the area have been generous with donations and support. So far this year, she added, there's been a slight uptick in traffic going through the food bank.
The entire donation from Twain's foundation will be directed toward purchasing food items for clients, Ramsay-Desroches said.
The $25,000 donation is part of the foundation's goal to fund 375,000 meals for people experiencing food insecurity across the country.
The organization has also committed cash to food groups in Manitoba as the province deals with ongoing wildfires, as well as Second Harvest, which supports local Canadian food programs.