ELMSDALE:<\/strong> Susie McDonell was a ray of sunshine to everyone she met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, it was only fitting that rays of sun beamed down on the volunteers who organized and were helping out at a drive-thru food drive for the Caring & Sharing Angel Tree Food Bank in her memory on Nov. 7 at the parking lot at Curly\u2019s in Enfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The food drive, held in the parking lot at Curly\u2019s in Enfield, was organized by Janice Smith, a niece of Susie who said it only made sense to do it for Caring & Sharing, something that was near and dear to Susie\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s been wonderful,\u201d said Susie\u2019s sister Deanna Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe turnout has been wonderful,\u201d added niece Janice Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”2″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”96″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n McDonell had a passion for the Caring & Sharing food bank, so her family setup the food drive, which followed all COVID19-related precautions and guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smith said they collected $8,780 in monetary and gift cards for Caring and Sharing, while delivering four half-tonne trucks worth of food from the food drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The volunteers even had food donated to them to ensure they had the energy for the food drive from Cup of Soul in Elmsdale. They provided coffee and cinnamon rolls to the volunteers, which Janice wanted to thank them for supplying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Janice said Susie was the type of person who was giving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFood was her life, she had a business, she had dinner parties, cooking classes, and she worked at the food bank every year,\u201d said Janice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”8″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Molly Smith, Susie\u2019s great niece, said Susie loved food and giving back to those less fortunate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFood was her passion and helping others was her passion,\u201d said Molly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The three said East Hants was showing \u201cenSUSIEasm\u201d (a word that Susie\u2019s friend Louise Parked used) in their support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAbsolutely, without a doubt they\u2019re showing that,\u201d said Molly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Janice was amazed at the amount of food that had been dropped in just the first 90 minutes of the drive-thru food drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt has exceeded our expectations already,\u201d said Smith. \u201cPeople have been very generous. It\u2019s been a success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She felt that the food bank would be wowed at what they see when the group dropped off the food they collected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to be surprised with the amount of food we bring them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019ll be ecstatic, I would say,\u201d added Molly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wouldn\u2019t have been possible without the efforts of many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe want to thank everyone that was involved in helping us and making this an astounding success,\u201d said Janice. \u201cSusie would be very proud.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And knowing Susie, she sure would be, and maybe that\u2019s why the sun beamed down with a little more warmth on this day. It was Susie showing how proud she was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”84″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [adrotate banner=”78″] MAIN PHOTO: Molly Smith, Janice Smith, and Deanna Smith stand by some of the food collected in the first 90 minutes of the memorial food drive. (Healey photo) ELMSDALE: Susie McDonell was a ray of sunshine to everyone she met. So, it was only fitting that rays of sun beamed down on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[965,12],"tags":[1556,177,1557],"class_list":["post-18024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-hants","category-featured","tag-caring-sharing-angel-tree-food-bank","tag-food-drive","tag-susie-mcdonell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/123657702_661519664565867_3790139433333962037_n-1024x768.jpg\")