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Thousands raised for food bank by caring individuals in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows

One family raised $1,100 by making angel keychains and another raised $3,200 by making face masks
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Denise Johnson has raised $3,200 for the Friends In Need Food Bank by making face masks. (Contributed)

A Pitt Meadows woman and her mother have donated more than $1,000 to the local food bank from selling angel keychains made from vintage cutlery.

When Naomi Corr’s father was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer on January 30, they thought the next time they saw the cancer specialist they were going to be told about a plan to fight the disease.

Instead, they were told there was nothing doctor’s could do to help.

The specialist told them to make an exception to COVID-19 rules and allow family, including her siblings and her father’s grandchildren, into the house to maximize the time they had left.

But they needed masks to reduce the chance of contracting the virus from one another.

Her mother, Noeleen Corr, saw an online post from someone in Maple Ridge who was making face masks from home off Laity Street.

When they asked the person to supply seven masks for the family they were told, instead of payment, to make a donation to the Friends In Need Food Bank.

Noeleen, who has been making jewellery out of vintage cutlery for the past 12 years, thanked the mask-maker by making her a handmade heart necklace and an angel keychain.

READ MORE: Maple Ridge Food bank desperate for clean egg cartons

After Naomi’s father passed away on April 26, her mother,was inspired by the mask-maker’s act of kindness to continue raising money for those in need.

She decided to keep making the angel keychains and to sell them at her daughter’s Maple Ridge store with 100 per cent of the proceeds going to the food bank.

In two days she sold 70 keychains at $10 a piece. And when she ran out of material to make more another friend stepped in. Carol Warner Kerr donated 10 of her own handmade angel keychains to the cause and made 30 more.

READ MORE: Food bank protocols in place for clients, volunteer and staff in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows

They were able to donate $1,100.

Another mask-maker in Maple Ridge has raised $3,200 for the same cause.

Denise Johnson has been making face masks since the beginning of April. She started making them for her family.

She initially thought that when her family is around her 86-year-old mother they should be wearing a mask.

Johnson – a quilter for around 20 years – had a lot of fabric sitting around her house.

Then, when she saw a news story on how the food bank had been overwhelmed by people who had lost their jobs and couldn’t make ends meet, she decided to make some masks to raise some money.

At first she posted them online where people could order what they wanted and she would leave them in front of her house for donations.

Donations started between $3 to $5 per mask. Then people were leaving her up to $15 per mask. Now she is selling them for $8 per mask for a child’s size and $13 for adults.

So far she estimates she has made around 500 masks.

“My fingers feel it,” she said.

Currently she is running low on stock and has had problems trying to find elastic.

But once she receives her elastic order she will start making them again – if there is still a need.


 

cflanagan@mapleridgenews.com

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Noeleen Corr, right, hands Nancy Nagy with the Friends In Need Food Bank, a cheque for $1,100. (Contributed)


Colleen Flanagan

About the Author: Colleen Flanagan

I got my start with Black Press Media in 2003 as a photojournalist.
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