Karen Whitecalf, right, adjusts one of the pieces built by employees. (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

By Michael Joel-Hansen

Community Service

Business gets creative to raise money for food bank

Feb 22, 2019 | 5:25 PM

Staff at a Prince Albert business found a way to collect items for the local food bank while building comradery amongst the team.

The Northern Lights Casino invited staff members to bring in food items to donate to the local food bank. But before the food was hand over staff got the opportunity to express some of their artistic and creative talents by building a physical image of their boss using the food they brought in.

“I think it’s a big success, you should have seen the team’s yesterday building their managers, there was laughter, teamwork, cooperation,” Operations Manager Karen Whitecalf said.

One of the displays built by employees at the casino (Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

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Employees have been donating food since December. The idea of having employees build images of their managers out the donated items was thought of by Whitecalf, who thought it would be good way to motivate employees.

“I was just trying to be creative and how to motivate our staff and you know, there’s always that tiny bit of competition between departments at the casino, so I thought it would be a great idea. We could get them all motivated and do something constructive,” she said.

Whitecalf said they decided to support the food bank as over 20,000 people accessed its services last month.

“We share the casino success with the community,” she said.

There were nine different departments at the casino, and each built their own statue. The displays were built in the conference room at the P.A. Inn and people who passed through the room had the chance to vote for which display was the best, with the winning display getting a pizza party.

There was no official tally in terms of how much food was brought in.

This is the first time the casino took on an effort like this. Whitecalf said she hopes to try the effort again next year and if it proves successful maybe expand it.

“We might challenge the city to come in and build their managers,” she said.

(Michael Joel-Hansen/paNOW Staff)

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn