‘It just means the world’; Canyon Media hosts food drive for Switchpoint food pantry

ST. GEORGE — The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to a high demand for the services that Switchpoint Community Resource Center food pantry offers, but they have seen a decrease in donations. Canyon Media teamed up with Switchpoint to hold a food drive on Saturday morning.

Canyon Media hosted a food drive for Switchpoint food pantry in St. George, Utah, April 18, 2020 | Photo by Ryne Williams, St. George News

All of the Canyon Media radio stations were represented at the drive, with 95.9 The Hawk, KONY Country and others on hand.

“It’s awesome because this is what local radio is all about,” Canyon Media Radio Operations Manager Mike Sanders said. “It’s doing things locally in the community with the people that we talk to everyday on the radio, asking for their help. They’ve been great to us and they show up. That’s the great thing about doing this today, seeing the faces of the people who want to give back here in the St. George community.”

KONY Country morning host Amy Chesley said the food drive was a perfect example of Canyon Media and the community teaming up together to help out.

Sunny 101.5 host “Wild” Bill Logan echoed a similar sentiment.

“I think it’s a fantastic opportunity for us to get together as a group, as Canyon Media, and pool our resources with listeners to get people in the community engaged,” Logan said. “It really lifts your spirit when you see all of the folks that are coming out and helping today. It’s great to be apart of it.”

Linda Stay, the Development Director at Switchpoint, was holding back tears as she thanked people for donating to the food drive.

“It makes me proud to be a Southern Utahn because we have those innate values and we don’t shy away from tragedy or crisis, we jump in,” Stay said. “As somebody staffed here at Switchpoint, we couldn’t do it without our community. We couldn’t do it without that help and support.”

Canyon Media hosted a food drive for Switchpoint food pantry in St. George, Utah, April 18, 2020 | Photo by Ryne Williams, St. George News

The staff at Switchpoint has been working to help provide food to those in need and many of the people going to the food pantry have never had to use their services before.

Stay said that she considers their staff members as first responders, adding that they haven’t shrunk back and they do not plan to. They will be there for the people that need them during this pandemic.

“It just means the world,” Stay said of the food drive. “We’re all trying to do our part by self isolating and social distancing but as you can imagine, we’ve had such an uptick in people needing to use the services and people coming to access the food pantry that have never had to do that before. We’re handling it because of stuff like this, because our community always steps up and helps when we put out that call. It’s a beautiful thing. We get to see the best of people.”

Mayor Jon Pike was in attendance for the event and was amazed at the turnout for the food drive.

“This is so crucial right now for Switchpoint,” Pike said. “They missed their biggest opportunity for a big fundraiser that they had to cancel because of COVID-19. Today, as usual, you see the good people of St. George and the Washington County area come together to help the good people at Switchpoint. This is just fantastic.”

For those needing help from Switchpoint or its food pantry, go to this link.  To make a monetary donation, go to this link.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

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