July 15, 2010

NCAO launches annual food drive

By: Phil Ambroziak

A cultural celebration, such as this one from 2009, will serve to officially wrap up the annual Nepalese Canadian Association of Ottawa (NCAO) food drive, which gets underway this month. This year's celebration is planned for Andrew Haydon Park on July 31.

It’s all about giving back to the community.

This week marks the launch of the annual Nepalese Canadian Association of Ottawa (NCAO) food drive, which has been benefiting the Ottawa Food Bank since 2003.

“The Nepalese community in Ottawa is not a big community there are maybe only 70 to 75 families,” explained Krishna H. Gautam, coordinator of the NCAO food drive. “We don’t have a very long history here most families came in the 1990’s and I came here in 2001.”

That was also the year in which the NCAO was formed and, since its inception, the group has been involved in a number of community-oriented projects. One of its more popular efforts has been the food drive campaign to benefit the Ottawa Food Bank.

In past years, the NCAO has collected more than $46,000 worth of food and cash for the food bank and it’s ready to add even more to that number this year.

“Volunteers started dropping flyers throughout local neighbourhoods last week informing people as to what day this week we would be coming door-to-door to collect food or cash donations,” Mr. Gautam said. “Sometimes, if people are not going to be home when we are in the neighbourhood, they will leave a bag of food on their doorstep with our flyer attached to it.”

In 2003, the food drive was restricted to the Barrhaven area, but has since grown to include Centrepointe, South Keys, Westboro, Kanata and other areas throughout the city.

According to Mr. Gautam, the success the food drive has generated thus far was made possible through the support of these communities, as well as local artists (who perform at a special celebration at the conclusion of each year’s drive), volunteers, businesses and the media.

“This gives the message that a small charity event organized by a small community is quickly becoming a popular multi-community charity event in Ottawa,” an NCAO news release on the food drive reads. “All these achievements have encouraged us to further promote this program.”

According to Mr. Gautam, the NCAO had two objectives in mind when it originally decided to organize a food drive seven years ago.

“The first objective was to help hungry people because there are so many people in need,” he said. “Secondly, we wanted to develop a volunteer-base in our community and this was an easy way to do just that it also allows people from our community to show off their talents during our annual celebration.”

As part of this year’s celebration, the NCAO will present multicultural dance and music shows from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 31. More than 75 accomplished and aspiring performers representing more than 13 countries take to the stage at Andrew Haydon Park in Nepean, to demonstrate their talents.

All proceeds from these shows will also be donated to the Ottawa Food Bank, which provides emergency food assistance to 43,000 people per month.

For more information, visit www.nepalese.ca.

pambroziak@theemc.ca