Fort Erie volunteers deliver truckload of donations to wildfire evacuees

Bella Recinos Athanasas hauled a truckload of donated diapers, blankets, clothing and hygiene products more than 200 kilometres from Fort Erie to Holland Landing, Ont., on Sunday, but found the wildfire relief site there was closed.

She phoned around, reached a community contact about 20 minutes away and unloaded the supplies in Sutton, Ont., on the south shore of Lake Simcoe.

The donations, collected in four days at the Fort Erie Native Friendship Centre, went to families forced from their homes by the nearly 200 fires burning across northwestern Ontario.

The centre has now paused physical donations and is asking for gift cards and money to help an extended family from Gull Bay First Nation, whose most urgent problem is the climbing cost of flights out of the fire zone.

“Anything that has to do with emergency evacuations, you have to be really adaptable to planning, coordinating and all of those things,” Athanasas, the centre’s Indigenous mental health and wellness co-ordinator, told Fort Erie Radio after returning from the delivery.

The effort began with a meeting at the Fort Erie Public Library. Athanasas sat down with local volunteers Colton Clause and Shaina Sollen after the three discovered no sites in Niagara were collecting for people displaced by the fires.

“So we were like, ‘Okay, why don’t we just see if we can get donations out and then start making those connections?'” said Athanasas. “We noticed that there wasn’t any donation areas in Niagara, and we don’t know where the evacuees are going to end up.”

Within days, the response outgrew what the team could handle, Athanasas said. The first donation announcement gained more than 40,000 views on Facebook within three days and was shared more than 1,000 times on Instagram.

Ruffins Pet Centre opened a second drop-off site in Port Colborne for pet supplies. Brock University’s women’s and gender studies department got in touch, she said, as did Rizzo’s House of Parm and Blue Goose Farms in Crystal Beach. Some callers phoned from as far away as London, Ont.

“We ended up getting to max capacity on the first day that we were accepting donations, and I was so happy but also so overwhelmed,” she said.

“I’m a three-person team. It was just literally me and my friends saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to give some of our free time just to getting everything kind of up and running.'”

Athanasas said she worked through all three days, staying until 1 a.m. and returning at 4 a.m. before Sunday’s delivery. She said she also brought supplies to a family of five on Saturday, and that donors from Six Nations of the Grand River were expected to arrive with another large contribution once the first shipment cleared the building.

Premier Doug Ford told reporters Monday morning that nearly 200 wildfires are burning across northern Ontario, and about 1,800 people from more than two dozen communities, including 10 First Nations, have fled to host cities.

Hundreds of members of Eabametoong First Nation have already landed in Niagara Falls, according to Athanasas.

The site she visited Sunday requires about 200 people just to sort the donations already stacked there.

“It’s a bit of a confusing situation….given that there’s clearly a very strong disconnect between what the government is doing, or the lack of,” Athanasas said.

Ford said Saturday the province has more than 155 fire crews and 80 aircraft working on the fires.

Athanasas said the strain on donation sites is why the centre has stopped taking clothing and general goods. Its focus now is on helping families one-on-one.

“It’s going to be gift cards, and it’s definitely going to be through monetary value,” she said. “That’s the most pressing because all the donation sites across Ontario are extremely overwhelmed.”

The Fort Erie Native Friendship Centre’s food pantry has also run empty, and it is accepting food donations.

Residents who want to help the family can email Athanasas through the centre, so support matches what the family still needs. She asked for patience from people reaching out.

The centre will post its next donation requests and updates on its Facebook page.

Stay Informed

Events, offers, contests, and breaking news, all delivered straight to your inbox.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Subscribe