Last call for donations, volunteers to help Fort McMurray residents

The Alberta Wildfire Donation Centre in northwest Edmonton is putting out a final call for donations and volunteers to help get the last shipments of items to people in Fort McMurray affected by a wildfire last May.

"We are seeing there is a need now for more outerwear, winter clothing," donation centre spokesperson Kryzia Abacan said Monday. "Sweaters, jackets, mitts, that type of thing."

Donations will be accepted until Oct. 14 at 17306 129th Ave.

The goal is to get the new donations and the items remaining in the warehouse sorted and shipped by Nov. 30, when the warehouse will shut down.

That's where the call for more volunteers comes in.

"In September we saw more days with no volunteers than we did with volunteers, and so we're hoping to reach out to the community of Edmonton and around Edmonton to get some more volunteers out to finish the job," she said.

Donna Saunders was one of the few volunteers sorting through boxes Monday morning. She does it for several hours, three times a week.

"I just couldn't imagine what they were going through so I was just feeling good that I could help out in some way", she said. She's been volunteering in this way for months now.

"To me it's kind of like a mission that I started, so why stop now?"

Ngaere Gill has volunteered every Tuesday since June. 

She said she gets "great satisfication" from knowing that she's helping people in Fort McMurray.

When her sister Ruth Watson arrived this summer for a lengthy visit from Australia, she joined the effort.

Watson said helping gives her "a warm fuzzy feeling."

The wildfire in May forced more than 90,000 people to leave Fort McMurray. Hundreds of homes were destroyed in the fire, leaving people with little more than what they could grab and the clothes on their backs.

The wildfire donation centre is operated by ADRA Canada, the official humanitarian agency of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.