Volunteers for June 27th Miracle food drive finally finish sorting donations

All it took was seven weeks and some 1,200 volunteers to sort through all the food collected from Windsor-Essex's June 27th Miracle food drive, one organizer told CBC's Windsor Morning.

After the region's massive food drive earlier this summer, all of the donations were brought to the WFCU Centre and sorted. Volunteer Steve Truant said all of the food was sorted into 31 different categories and organized by type and expiry date. 

The most common items they received were soup and cereal, with a significant amount of toiletries rolling in too. Truant said they even got pet food. 

"The amount of support from the community during the sorting process was absolutely overwhelming," Truant said. "Getting that much food sorted in seven weeks was a pretty amazing process to watch."

According to Truant, now that the WFCU Centre will be used as a hockey arena again, the food is now being stored in Adie Knox Herman Arena in Windsor, a Leamington warehouse that is being lent by the Unemployed Help Centre and 10,000 square feet of local warehouse space donated by a local real estate agent and business owner.  

He said in the next few weeks the food will be distributed. 

At the time of the drive, it was estimated that approximately 916,500 kg of food was donated and that it would feed about 28,000 households in the region. 

"We're sitting down with the inventory spreadsheets and we're going through them," Truant said. "We're trying to make sure that no one gets left behind, that anyone who needs food, gets food." 

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