Community Bank’s food drive nets 185 bins of food, $4,625 cash

 Baker City came up with the most and Wallowa was second in Community Bank’s bank-wide Food Drive Challenge in November and December. 

The goal was to collect and donate 30 bins of food (32 gallon bins) to local food banks, plus $25 for each bin collected.

 If this goal was met, Community Bank made a pledge to donate a whole beef to the area where the most food was donated.   

The Baker City branch collected 40 bins of food and won the challenge. Branch Manager Sonya Vela attributed the success to the caring and giving community of Baker City.

“I would like to thank all the kids at South Baker School, kids from the Catholic Religious Education Class, local businesses, local organizations, and to our many caring customers that donated food items during these tough times,” Vela said.

Vela said she decided to spread the monetary donations from Community Bank between three area food banks: Baker City Christian Church, Northeast Oregon Compassion Center and St Francis De Sales Food Bank. 

Not only did the Baker City food banks receive a total of 40 bins of food and $1,000 in cash, fresh packaged beef purchased by Community Bank from local ranchers Gerald and Bonnie Colton will be arriving towards the end of February.

A surprising second place finisher in the Food Drive Challenge is the small town of Wallowa. They collected 29 bins of food and earned the Wallowa Food Bank $725.

Following is breakdown of the number of bins collected at all the Community Bank branches:

Baker City        40

Wallowa        29

Pendleton        20

Union        18

Joseph        15

Pendleton-Southgate    13

La Grande-Valley    12

La Grande-Downtown    8

Enterprise        7

Milton-Freewater    7

Elgin            7

Walla Walla-Downtown    3

Hermiston-Downtown    2

Walla Walla-Eastgate    1

Hermiston-North Hill    1

Heppner        1

Clarkston        1