North Bay, Ontario — June 4, 2015 — A recent mishap involving a transport truck and a load of frozen meat has made for a happy ending, thanks to the quick thinking of a North Bay tow truck company.
Bay Today reports that the truck, hauling a refrigerated trailer packed with pork, tipped over near Rutherglen, Ontario the morning of June 2.
Barlett’s Towing arrived on the scene, and while they were initially told to trash the meat, they found a much better use for it after reaching out to the Gathering Place, a community soup kitchen.
“Those guys are stars. It would be a crying shame for this food to go to waste,” Gathering Place Executive Director Jill Clark said in the report, adding that Erb Transport stepped in to help provide storage of the meat.
“It’s amazing. Lean, good quality protein is one of the largest expense items in our budget and so this means there is more money for milk and fruit and all the other things that we need to buy,” Clark says.
According to Clark, the Gathering Place makes a point of providing fresh, high quality, homemade meals in compliance with Canada’s Food Guide. She says most of the kitchen’s guests aren’t just hungry, they’re malnourished.
“In Canada we waste 35 billion dollars a year. There is no reason why anybody should be malnourished,” she says.
The kitchen serves up close to 150 lunches per day, and Clark estimates the gifted meat should last them half a year.
“It’s absolutely fabulous,” she says.
