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Peanut Butter Campaign supports local food banks

Both Save On Foods in Fernie and Overwaitea in Sparwood participated in the first ever peanut butter campaign which donates a large amount of peanut butter to the Food Back to help those in need.
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Save On Foods store manager Ryan Nesbitt presents the Fernie Food Bank with crates of peanut butter. Alexandra Heck/The Free Press

Both Save On Foods in Fernie and Overwaitea in Sparwood participated in the first ever peanut butter campaign which donates a large amount of peanut butter to the Food Back to help those in need.

Every time a 500 gram jar of peanut butter was purchased at a Save On Foods, one was donated to a local food bank. Donations started at the beginning of December, and ran for a week.

In the Elk Valley, many generously donated to the cause. Some customers even gave multiple jars.

“[I’m] certainly happy with this,” said Nesbitt. “Especially this time of year. It’s great to see the community come forward and get behind something like that, spending a little bit extra to help out.”

This is the first year these grocery stores have participated in the fundraiser. In fact, all Save On Foods, Overwaitea’s and Pricesmarts across B.C., Alberta, Yukon Territories, Saskatchewan and Manitoba participated.

Last year in B.C. alone, food banks helped 103,464 people, 32.2 per cent of them children.

The campaign was first launched in Williams Lake, B.C, last year. The store manager at the time started it after finding out that the Food Bank lacked items with protein. Many households rely on peanut butter as an affordable source of protein.

Save On Foods Fernie store manager Ryan Nesbitt was working in Williams Lake at the time, and recalled them donating around 400 units of peanut butter to the local food bank.

“So that was really successful for that store, and then the company caught wind of it and felt that it was a great thing to do and to implement in the rest of the company,” said Nesbitt.



Phil McLachlan

About the Author: Phil McLachlan

Phil McLachlan is the editor at the Penticton Western News. He served as the reporter, and eventually editor of The Free Press newspaper in Fernie.
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