February 19, 2022

THIS SPUD’S FOR YOU AND YOU … PACKING AWAY CHARITY POTATOES HAPPY PROBLEM TO HAVE

MUSKOKA — What do you do if you’ve got 40,000 pounds of potatoes and nowhere to put them all?

Or at least 5,000 pounds extra.

Well, if you’re Rotarians your basement is also fair game.

That was the happy problem that club members and Gravenhurst Against Poverty members faced today as they helped offload 16 skids of PEI potatoes as part of Muskoka-wide Rotary effort to truck in PEI spuds for local food banks.

With two rooms in United Church basement full, GAP organizer Linda Harrison filled the bottom level of her home with almost 5,000 pounds this afternoon.

Dr. Ardyn Todd and Rotarian Kyle Moorhouse and another Rotarians took home more than 1,000 pounds for temporary storage.

It was much the same in Bracebridge where the day began at 10 a.m. with dozens of Bracebridge Rotarians joined by club members from Huntsville and Muskoka Lakes as the off-load a transport and re-loaded them into pickup trucks and delivery vans destined for 16 food banks around Muskoka in the coming weeks and months.

It was all-hands-on-deck starting at Fanotech as everyone sloshed through a deep overnight snow to lend a hand.

Hand-bombing was the order of the day — even as a fork truck did a lot of the heavy off-lifting as everyone eagerly pitched in to pass hand-to-hand 4,000 bags of 10-pound ‘Yellow Golds.’

The same thing happened in Gravenhurst as almost 30 volunteers from GAP joined Rotarians at Home Hardware first and then the church and finally Harrison’s house.

It was Rotary at it best and the culmination of three-week effort spear-headed by Bracebridge Rotary Club member Paul Hammond who came up with the two-pronged idea of helping farmers out east hit by a U.S. ban and assisting the local food-challenged.

With the help of the District of Muskoka, who got the province to pay the $14,000 sale and shipping costs, the initiative was pure Canadian.

A helping hand(s) that saw trucks moving in and out and “conga-lines” tossing around the bags like hot potatoes.

All to the sound of Stompin’ Tom Connors’ “Bud the spud …” blaring in the background competing with beeping forklift and the sound of joy and laughter.

Sounds they haven’t heard for years and quite enjoyed.