Food banks deliver Thanksgiving hampers to tornado victims

Victims of the tornadoes that ripped through the Ottawa-Gatineau area last month will enjoyThanksgiving meals this weekend,thanks to the efforts of food banks and their supporters across the region.

The West Carleton Food Access Centre and theMoisson Outaouaisfood bank were two of the localagencies thatprovided tornado victims with baskets filled with turkeys, vegetables and a handful of other much-needed items Saturday.

"I am so grateful for the community and the people I have been working with this past week and a half," said Vera Jones of the Savvy Seconds West Carleton clothing charity, which partnered with the food access centre on the project.

"It's brought so many people together."

Preston Zaborowski, a local farmer with thePazab Family Farm, donated hundreds of vegetables to the centre.

"We were inspired to get involved just by the damage and destruction we saw with the recent tornadoes,"Zaborowskisaid.

"The community has been so supportive of our family farm for the past five years that we just wanted to give back in anyway that we could."

Thanksgiving help in theOutaouais

Moisson Outaouais, meanwhile, distributed Thanksgivingbaskets on Saturday to hundreds of Gatineau households who are still recovering following the Sept. 21 tornadoes.

The extreme weather event left peoplewithout power for days, forcing many to throw away most of the food in theirrefrigerators.

"We ran out of [power] for six days [and] I had just gone grocery shopping I threw it all away," Nicole Morin, a resident in the hard-hitMont-Bleu neighbourhood, told Radio-Canada in a French-language interview.

The Gatineau food bankhanded out roughly1,000 basketsfilled with meat, fruit, eggs and hygiene products.

The organizations are now askingpeople to donateelsewhere as they have reachedcapacity.