Halton gift card distribution

(Update)
Food cards were being handed out in Halton Wednesday in the wake of the ice storm power outages. People in need weren’t exactly knocking down the doors to get their food vouchers. But we did speak with two families who are thankful for the program.

Lori Sanger and her family were without power in Georgetown for four days. “It was very hard, especially with little ones. It got so cold, we had no fireplace or other means of heating the house.”

She ended up borrowing money from her family so they could stay in a hotel for two nights. Her friend Judith Quackenbush went six days without electricity: “Being without power for 6 days, lost a lot of meat and food products in the fridge.”

The province’s food card program hit Halton this week. Judith and Lori came to the Georgetown Salvation Army Community Church to pick up their cards: “It’s absolutely fantastic. I’m surprised people would give out money to this sort of thing.”

Officials say there were about 20,000 homes in the Halton region without power for more than 48 hours after the ice storm.

Sheldon Wolfson is with Halton Region: “We want to make sure the right people get the meal cards, we’ll do everything to ensure that happens.”

In the first hour, only 3 people showed up to the Burlington Salvation Army to receive their food voucher.

Sheldon says: “There’s two criteria, that your power was out 48 hours in the outage, and that you have a financial difficulty replacing the food you lost.”

Because they both have two kids, Lori and Judith walked away with 100 dollars each in food cards: “It’ll help a lot. Four days. It was hard, and pay back money from hotel, you know what I mean.”

“Quite a bit actually, considering our fridge and freezer are empty, we’re living on the basics. We might be able to fill the fridge up again.”

Throughout the day, 219 people stopped by one of the five foodbanks in the Halton Region handing out the food vouchers. The program in Halton runs until Friday, or until they run out of food cards.