U19B Rattlers to host food drive for veterans food bank

By Lethbridge Herald on November 5, 2024.

SUbmitted Photo The Lethbridge Rattlers U19 B ringette team are hosting a food bank drive for The Veterans Association Food Bank on Sunday.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge U19B Rattlers ringette team are showing their support for local veterans and their families this weekend ahead of Remembrance Day.

The team has initiated a food drive to fill the shelves of the depleted Veterans Association Food Bank.

“I would say it’s important to give back to the community because we are very fortunate and we have context that what we do is for fun,” said Chris McIntyre, Rattlers head coach.

“But we have a lot of people out there who we know need support and we also know that there are lots of people out there who have supported us over the years of playing ringette.”

The idea came about after the Rattlers were up at a Calgary tournament last weekend and had noticed teams had poppy stickers on their helmets and McIntyre had wondered where those decals could be bought as he had never seen them before.

McIntyre was there with assistant coach, Gord Cox, who had mentioned he had a contact for printing decals.

Cox had asked the gentlemen after the poppy decals were printed free of charge if there was anything else the team could do.

“This gentleman had indicated that maybe a donation or something could be nice for the Veterans Food Bank and so it was sort of born out of that as well where we started with a little idea and it sort of expanded from there ,” recalled McIntyre.

Tracy Larson, Rattlers general manager,  then contacted the Veterans Food Bank.

“She ended up going and discovering that they’re hurting right now,” said McIntyre.

It was a conversation after that between McIntyre, Cox and Larson that the food drive came about.

“It’s a pretty accessible way of supporting the community,” said McIntyre.

“Everyone can either reach in their cupboards and share some food items that they’ve got or go to the store and buy some flats of food. There’s opportunities for everyone to do a little bit of give back with this one.”

The Rattlers challenged this Sunday’s opponents, the South Calgary U19B team, to collect food and they accepted.

Food donations will be collected, reviewed and organized outside of the Henderson Arena between games.

Food pick-up can be arranged by contacting a board of director through the Lethbridge Ringette Association website.

Game times are at 2 and 5 p.m. on Sunday.

The Veterans Food Bank is looking for canned milk, pancake mix, flour, sugar, rice, canned chili, canned meats, canned potatoes, instant potatoes and broths.