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#RootedInCommunity Food Drive returning to Orangeville this weekend 

May 22, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Sam Odrowski

Orangeville’s mayor is bringing back a popular fundraiser that generated over 20,000 pounds of food and more than $8,500 last October.

The second #RootedInCommuntiy Food Drive, which pins neighbourhoods against each other in a friendly competition to see which region of Orangeville can generate the most donations, is taking place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 24.

“There are 10 zones that each have a Zone Captain and volunteers – you find your neighbourhood on the zone map and plan to donate there to support your neighbourhood’s total pounds collected. The zone who collects the highest number of pounds of food wins bragging rights and the trophy,” said Orangeville Mayor Lisa Post in an email. “We have about 30 volunteers in the community signed up to help, plus the incredible team at the [Orangeville] Food Bank, who will be there to receive donations and start sorting.”

Due to the success of last year’s event, Orangeville Mayor Lisa Post decided to bring it back for the spring season, as the food bank continues to struggle to ensure it has enough food to deal with the rising demand.

“This food drive is about neighbours helping neighbours and the food bank needs about 60,000 pounds of food per month to meet the community need and are currently collecting about half of that in donations,” said Mayor Post. “In the summertime, donations typically go down and we want to get ahead of that and fill the shelves before the summer hits! Please get out to your zone to support this incredibly important cause.”

The drop-off zones for each area of town are:

• Zone 1: Island Lake Public School
• Zone 2: Princess Margaret Public School
• Zone 3: Orangeville Farmers Market
• Zone 4: Orangeville Seniors Centre
• Zone 5: Board of Education Building (Amelia Street)
• Zone 6: Parkinson Centennial Public School
• Zone 7: St. Andrew’s Catholic School
• Zone 8: Lions Sport Park (Diane Drive)
• Zone 9: Spencer Ave Public School
• Zone 10: Fendley Park

This year, the zones are different than last year, but a map can be viewed on Mayor Post’s Facebook profile at facebook.com/lisaposty to see what zone you reside in. 

Last year, Zone 10 (Settler’s Creek) generated the most donations with 2,122 lbs and $2,309. In the end, $8,559 and 20,408 pounds of food were collected from 17 zones through the drive.

“In October, I was hoping to collect 10,000 pounds of food and the community rallied together and donated an incredible 20,000 pounds! I’m hoping we can collect 12,000 pounds this time,” said Mayor Post.

“Our Food Bank does amazing work and the need is continuing to grow. We have an amazing community willing to rally and support one another so I thought we could have some fun!”

Anyone who’s unable to drop off donations in person but still wants to support the #RootedInCommuntiy Food Drive can e-transfer administration@orangevillefoodbank.org and be sure to put their zone number in the transfer message, as every $3.58 donated equals one pound of food.

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