A crew from Wallaceburg is heading back home, after making the long journey to Edmonton, Alberta where a drop-off point is located for the fire victims from Fort McMurray.
“All of the volunteers there, they couldn’t believe we drove all the way from Ontario for starters,” said Chris Logan, who works for the family-operated Wallace-Kent Sprinklers Inc. – who spearheaded a local donation drive.
“They couldn’t believe we filled two 24-foot utility trailers and the back of a large transit van with donations. They were very surprised and super excited.”
Chris said the support was overwhelming back at home.
“Out of all the people in Southwestern Ontario, we had the least to do with this,” he told the Sydenham Current.
“It came together as an idea and all we did was transport the donations. Without the people of Wallaceburg and Southwestern Ontario we wouldn’t of been able to do it. All the credit has got to go basically to everyone in Wallaceburg.”
Chris said a huge thank-you has to go out to Steve and Cheryl Bilodeau from mPower Electric in Wallaceburg, who Wallace-Kent Sprinklers share a building with.
“We took this on as a Wallace-Kent project and quickly ran out of space and resources,” Chris said.
“Steve stepped up and donated two of his trailers for us to haul out. Then he went ahead and donated his time, so he drove with us out to Edmonton, pulling one of the trailers. None of this would of been able to be done without Steve, as well as my entire family both my brothers, my sister, my parents, it was wild.”
Deb Logan, Chris’s mom, said the original plan was to fill their one transit van and have her son and husband, Bill, drive it out to Alberta.
“After day one we realized this was bigger than us,” she said.
“I had to call in for volunteers for help… if it wasn’t for the help we received we never would have been able to get this project off the ground.”
Deb said donations came from people as far as Exeter, Sarnia, Windsor, Chatham and Wallaceburg and Dresden.
“Such an outpouring for help,” she said.
“We have f or five skids of water that have to be shipped out at a later date,” she said.
Chris said they loaded up approximately six pallets of diapers, two pallets of baby wipes and many bags of clothing, blankets and pillows.
“And other donations that everybody from Southwestern Ontario and Wallaceburg brought to our shop for us to bring out,” he said.
“It was amazing, everybody down there couldn’t beleive that a small town in Southwestern Ontario could rally like that, it was good.”
Chris said the trip to Alberta was great, minus some vehicle trouble in Rockford, Illinois.
“One of the trucks basically broke down,” he said. “We got it fixed and headed back on the road and we got to Edmonton at about 6 p.m. on Sunday. Edmonton Emergency Relief Services had a drop-off point there, so went into a giant warehouse and dropped off the donations. There were about 20 or 25 volunteers waiting at the place. They shut down accepting other donations while we were unloading because we needed so many hands.”
The Wallaceburg crew have made the drop and were starting their journey to head back home today (Monday, May 16.)
Chris said they were expecting to be back by Tuesday afternoon.
Here are some photos from their trip:
