Mix 101 busts balls for the food bank

MIX 101’s edgy way to help the food bank with its first-annual Ball Breaker promotion has netted more than 3,000 pounds of food and $3,000 in cash donations.

Each donation to Prince Albert’s Share-A-Meal Food Bank at Co-op Marketplace on Wednesday came with an extra incentive. People picked a Christmas ornament for a highly-qualified ball smasher to crack open with a mallet.

Within some of them are prize tokens that ranged from iPad minis to gift cards from local businesses.

The jokes that have come out of it appeal to on-air announcer Lew Harrison, but he knows there’s a much higher purpose for their day collecting donations.

“Basically what we’re doing is helping out stock the shelves over the winter, holiday season because that’s the busiest time of year for the food bank,” he explained.

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Harrison was on location all day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. collecting money and donations with the food bank’s volunteers and its co-managers, Kerry Ramsdell and Wes Clarke.

Ramsdell spends a lot of time behind the scenes at the food bank, but she enjoys the change of pace for fundraisers like this.

“It is a nice change, just to see all the friendly faces coming in, people, you know making a donation, just to stop by, say hello. People purchasing hampers, the cases of soup. It’s nice to see,” Ramsdell explained.

The hampers, which Co-op put together, are worth $10 or $20 and each of them “goes a long way,” according to Ramsdell. Co-op also has a special on cases of soup and for each hamper or case donated by the public, Co-op is donating an extra $2.

Ramsdell was satisfied with the donations and the energy brought in by customers.

“A lot of parents are bringing in the kids. Kids are really excited when they get to see the prizes when they break the balls so it’s kinda fun… It’s kind of a blast.”

One of the most notable visits was from Sean Jesse from KIA of Prince Albert. The dealer donated 600 cans of soup to the food bank.

Ramsdell said the food bank’s clientele includes students, people new to the city, and working-class people.

“It’s not easy out there with the way rent is nowadays either. If you’re making your bill payments, your car payments, your rent. What do you got left for groceries? It’s kinda hard.”

Whether people have cash or groceries to donate, Share-A-Meal can make use of both for its clients or to pay utilities for the building.

“It supplies food for them and their kids and they’re really grateful for it, especially this time of year,” she said.

In September, the food bank gave out 18,561 pounds of food to people in Prince Albert. This is up more than 5,000 from the year before and represents almost 6.3 per cent of the city’s population.

These sobering numbers regarding food bank usage were included in a recent report from the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region.

Overall the fiscal year from 2013-2014 saw Share-A-Meal hand out over 134,950 pounds of food. The 2014-2015 numbers are sure to eclipse that, with over 125,820 pounds of food already distributed with four months to go in the fiscal year.

Ball-busting strategies

Bryan Ford, a salesman with MIX 101, took his role as the ornament smasher very seriously and knew the risks he was undertaking.

“There is glass flying everywhere.”

Volunteers with MIX 101 put in hard work to prepare the ornaments for Wednesday. Ford explained how they filled them with pieces of paper that revealed whether someone won a prize or not.

However, he knows not all ornaments are created equal.

“You know, the plastic ones, you really gotta give ‘em a good whack. So hey, it’s a hard job but we’re happy to do it,” Ford said.

Despite the risks associated with the glass ornaments, they’re his favourite because of the noise they make upon impact.

“The glass ones smash the best. But they’re the biggest hazard. Really, we’re really putting our lives on the line here. It can be pretty scary… A rogue shard could do damage.”

The event runs until 6 p.m. at Co-op Marketplace. At the end of the day the MIX and food bank team hopes to fill a one-ton truck with donations.

Also this month, PotashCorp. will match all monetary donations made to the province’s food banks. 

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk

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