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Project SHARE tent fundraiser recognized

A fundraiser last August, which featured 10 notable men from Niagara Falls live together in a tent on the corner of Thorold Stone and Montrose Roads for five days won the award at the Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB) annual conference on June 7.

Elaine Harvey, executive director of Project SHARE, and Diane Corkum had to pitch their "10 Men in a Tent" fundraising concept to a panel of food bank judges and more than 70 conference delegates with only a short time to get their idea across.
"It was just like Dragon's Den on TV," said Harvey. "We had to pitch the idea and answer questions from the panel. They asked tough questions and we had to really sell the event."
The award, now in its second year, was a way for the OAFB to encourage the sharing of best practices amongst food banks across the province. The event, inspired by Dragon's Den, gave food banks from across the province the opportunity to present their innovative initiatives with bragging rights and a trophy on the line.
For Harvey, winning the award was more than just about taking home a trophy, it was the opportunity to encourage others to organize a similar event in their city or town.
"I really wanted to get the message across that this worked, on all levels it worked," she said. "I'd love to see something like this happen in every city across Canada."
Harvey said the event brought the community together and also brought the issue of poverty in the city to the forefront.
"As a city, we realized that poverty is a problem for the whole community and it can only be solved by the whole community," she said.
The event was the brainchild of local businessman Bob Gale. After a chance encounter with Harvey where she mentioned the increased demand, Gale set about figuring out a way to "do something about it". He contacted the men and arranged for the event to come together, even going as far as pitching the tent on the land of one of his businesses.
The 10 men included a doctor, a radio personality, a city councillor and several business owners or general managers, who took time off work andspent time away from their families to live in the tent for one week. Harvey said they had to truly walk a mile in the shoes of the people who use Project SHARE's services on a regular basis.
"They would have to walk from the tent down to the Project SHARE facility to pick out their food and then, just like everyone else who uses the service, they had decide what foods to pick and were given the same allotment as a single person coming into the food bank," she said. "At first they were like 'where are the steaks?' and we had to tell them we don't have steaks, there are other foods you can use to get your protein, like beans or peanut butter."
10 Men in a Tent raised more than $150,000 in cash donations and 60,000 pounds of food for Project SHARE. Harvey said that people were stopping by every day to help out, show support and drop off donations, helping to make it the largest charitable event in Niagara Falls to date.
That's why it was so important for her to share this with others, she said.
"It was just such a successful event in so many ways, it got people talking and reached out to the community in a way we'd never been able to do before," she said. "It can work anywhere, if Cochrane wants to host it on a smaller scale, maybe one or two days, they can, whereas somewhere like Toronto might want to have a bigger event with even more people. There's just so many possibilities."
Harvey said there are no plans to host another 10 Men in a Tent this year but she hopes to see something similar in the future.
"It's something they planned and they did, so it's up to them to do it again," she said. "It's a hard act to follow but we've had lots of people coming forward saying 'we'll beat those men' so we'll just have to wait and see."
For more information about last year's event visit www.projectshare.ca .

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Fri Jun 18 2010