Buckets of cleaning supplies are now availble at the wildfire donation centre set up in the former Lake City Ford building on Oliver Street.
A total of 180 buckets of cleaning supplies were delivered to the donation centre Friday, August 4 and will be available for people who need them while supplies last.
The donation centre is scheduled to be open Saturday, August 5, Monday, and Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will be closed on Sunday. The centre is scheduled to close after Tuesday.
The buckets of cleaning supplies were delivered by Ted Sales, a forester, and Bill Blair, a retired judge, who are part of the GlobalMedic team helping to provide relief for people impacted by the wildfire situation in the region.
Sales said the cleaning supplies have been provided by Procter & Gamble and Walmart.
He said they started out with 300 buckets in Kamloops. They distributed 120 of the buckets to people registering at the Kamloops evacuation centre and brought the other 180 to Williams Lake to help evacuees here with their cleaning needs.
Sales explained that GlobalMedic is a charitable foundation that was formed in memory of David McAntony a paramedic who died in service and is the operational arm of the David McAntony Gibson Foundation.
The foundation is a registered Canadian charity with a mandate to save lives by providing short-term, rapid response in the wake of disasters and crisis, both at home and abroad.
Donation centre manager Zac Pinette said most of the food donations received at the centre have now been distributed to people in need so at the moment there isn’t a need to keep the centre open past next Tuesday.
The Salvation Army and United Way have been partnering with the local ministerial association to operate the donation centre and distribute bags of donated food at the Resiliency Centre located in the upper level of Boitanio Mall where fire evacuees are registered and can register for assistance with the Red Cross.
Ashlee Hyde executive director with United Way, who has been set up at the Resiliency Centre helping to deliver bags of food and personal care items to people in need, said she will be leaving the Resiliency Centre to help out at the donation centre on Monday and Tuesday.