The people of Yellowknife have once again provided for their neighbours from Hay River.
With many Hay River residents temporarily staying at the YK Multiplex, various businesses and organizations came together over the May 14th weekend to provide some free barbecue lunches.
The Crazy Indians Brotherhood stepped up first on Saturday. They decided to put together a “Feed the People” event to help provide food for those displaced by the floods.
One of the members of C.I.B., Michael “Sparrow” Fat shared the pleasantly simple reason that they organized the lunch.
“It’s a necessity. We just had to get out here, help out everybody we can. That’s what we’re all about, that’s what we do!”
Michael also shared how the lunch event was able to come together in such little time.
“We got together a couple days ago knowing that this was going on and that we knew we had to do something to help. We immediately had some ideas planned out, so a lot of this we already had in place, like the barbecues and everything. It was just an appropriate timing.”
Then on Sunday, several different businesses came together to do the very same thing. Yellowknife Motors, Yellowknife Beverages, Walmart, Northwest Distributors, and others pooled their resources together. Similar to the C.I.B., their event was quickly organized only a few days before, but they were still able to feed many people.
Arin Wall, one of the organizers of the lunch, shared his motivation to help set up their Sunday cookout.
“My wife and I had the idea that, on Sunday, why not come here? We knew everybody was still gonna be here because they weren’t given access back to Hay River yet. We knew there was gonna be a lot of people here, and if we could pool resources together from community minded people like ourselves, put it together, and feed a bunch of people, that’d be a good thing, so that’s what we’re doing.”\
Hundreds of hamburgers, hot-dogs, chips, and sodas were available to the people of Hay River over the weekend. It was a simple pair of cookouts to help keep their spirits high as they continue to endure a difficult time of crisis.
