Taylor honoured by peers

Photo: Contributed

For her role in helping to feed hundreds of people, Dawn Taylor is being recognized by her peers with the Realtors Care Award.

Taylor organized the 38th annual North Okanagan Realtors Food Drive that collected more than 32,000 pounds of food for the Salvation Army Food Bank.

Each year, the award is given to an Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board member in each of its three zones who has contributed to their community through volunteer work, financial support or through sharing of expertise.

Taylor is this year’s recipient for the North Okanagan zone, but she is quick to acknowledge the hard work of others, including the hundreds of volunteers who helped make the food drive a success.

Between 300-400 realtors and other volunteers canvassed neighbourhoods throughout Greater Vernon collecting food.

The single day event collects enough items to keep the food bank shelves full for months.

“I love what I do, but I don’t do it for the awards,” said a humble Taylor.

Fellow realtor Elspeth Manning, who is also a member of the Realtors Care nomination committee, said a lot of time and effort goes in to organizing the event.

“That work includes organizing all the routes, arranging all the bag pickups, making sure everyone has the correct information for the paperwork to be printed off and put into the bags, and tallying what the total tonnage of food is at the end. She also makes sure that it’s publicized locally, both pre and post, and works to get the publicity to drum up participation,” said Manning.