Prince George, B.C. – There is an ever-increasing need for the services of local food banks and the need is never greater than at this time of year when the weather gets colder and the requirement of sustenance becomes that much more crucial.

The local Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.) and the owner of a courier service in Terrace, Eric Roy, recognize the need and are teaming up today in an effort to stock the shelves of the Salvation Army food bank.

HOG director Angela O’Regan says Roy, owner of Spirit Bear Express, spends a lot of time in Prince George and “wanted to give back somehow so he decided to do a “fill the trailer with food” (event) for a local organization that would need it.  his idea was to bring the truck and trailer in and fill it with food.  Then we decided on the Salvation Army food bank.  They seem to have a big need at this time of year, in fact all times of the year but particularly at this time of the year.”

“So I contacted Harley Davidson of Prince George and they came on board.  They’re doing an open house (today) so we decided that we could put the two together and have Eric bring the trailer down, park it at Harley Davidson and then we could fill the trailer from there, with people already coming down for the open house.”

Area residents are invited to bring along non-perishable food items from 10 am to 2 pm and drop them off at the Harley shop, 2629 Vance Road.  Angela says she believes Roy’s trailer is an 18-footer “and we’re hoping that we’ll have to bring an extra trailer in, that would be the ultimate, and we’ll drop the food off at the Salvation Army Saturday afternoon.”

“The”Bear” necessities is really what we need in terms of food, you know soups, canned meat, canned fish, cereal, peanut butter — there’s lots of things you can give and the way I look at it is, somebody may think well I can only give one can of food, but if a thousand people think that way that’s a thousand cans of food.”

“Somebody may be able to do 10 or 20, but you know if all you can do is 1, then thank you and come on down.  And you know if we all do just a little bit it sure adds up.”

Also today at the Harley Davidson shop the Harley Owner’s Group will be making a cheque presentation to Muscular Dystrophy from their annual Muscle Run.

Angela says “its a fundraiser that we do pretty much every year.  Muscular Dystrophy has been the charity of choice for the H.O.G. so we did a ride this summer where we rode to Terrace and did an overnight stay there and came back to Prince George and everybody paid so much.  We also did barbeques through the summer where we raised funds that also went to Muscular Dystrophy.  So we’re presenting a cheque Saturday afternoon.  So its kind of an exciting day down at the dealership.”