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A pizza shop in Thunder Bay is stepping up to feed fire evacuees from Pikangikum First Nation.
Jim from Eat Local Pizza says he got a call from evacuation organizers who said more than 150 people were expected by midnight last night (three hours after the shop closed) and they didn’t have food for them.
A quick call to staff to see who would be willing to volunteer their time after hours, and soon there were five who came forward to pull together a meal.
“I am so proud of the capacity for humanitarianism and the depth of character of people in our Eat Local Fam that it really drives me in times like this,” Jim wrote on the shop’s Facebook page. “It is the moments like this, when someone needs help, that really defines what Eat Local Pizza has always (been) meant to be.”
He posted photos of all the activity in making sure the evacuees didn’t go hungry.
Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation posted his appreciation on Twitter.
“I have tremendous respect for Eat Local Pizza. Not only do they have great pizza, they have great hearts. When HammHS was evacuated because of bomb threats, they fed the students. They are stepping up again to help feed the #Pikangikum evacuees.”
As Thunder Bay prepared to host 2,000 evacuees in the coming days, Jim reached out to others to encourage them to show their support by providing any resources or services they could offer, and put out the phone number to reach the evacuation team.