Meadowvale Community Christian Reformed Church joined Canada’s first-ever National Hunger Awareness Day by hosting Hoops for Hunger, a free-throw basketball competition that required nonperishable food donations for the local food bank as an entry fee.
Approximately 150 people showed up at the Mississauga, Ontario, church for the event. Local businesses donated prizes to the cause. “It was fun. We could see kids coming down the street with bags of food. We raised a lot of food. We tried to get the message out that as a community we can do positive things to help others in need,” said organizer Stephanie Devey.
For Diane Geerlinks, a pastoral elder at the church, the initiative served as a way to get to know neighbors while raising hunger awareness. “It was a way to gather with our neighbors that wasn’t so ‘churchy,’” she said.
The Canadian Association of Food Banks launched National Hunger Awareness Day on June 6, 2006.
