2023 ESG Report
Real Canadian Superstore® team rallies to help Fort McMurray
May 22, 2020
At 4 a.m. on April 27, 2020, about five hours after closing the Real Canadian Superstore® location in Fort McMurray, Alta., there was a knock on Colleen Majeau’s front door. It was the RCMP, telling her that she had 20 minutes to get her vehicles out of the driveway or else they’d be under water. She grabbed what she could from her house and drove out of the neighbourhood.
“It was pretty scary,” says Colleen, Assistant Manager of the store. Her basement ultimately flooded up to the ceiling.
At the end of April, an ice jam on the Athabasca River stopped an intersecting river, the Clearwater, from draining properly. It backed up into the city’s downtown, forcing more than 13,000 people to evacuate their homes, flooding buildings, and prompting a boil-water advisory that’s still in effect.
The store shut down for six days, but luckily wasn’t damaged by the flood. Unfortunately, the Fort McMurray food bank was.
“Their building is totally done,” says Store Manager Anne Marie Callaghan, who’s affectionately known as Annie, to most. “I think they received six feet of water, so they lost every single thing they had. We were all here through the fire four years ago, so we knew there’d be a big need for the people of Fort McMurray.”
As soon as the store’s management team was allowed back inside to assess the situation, they salvaged what they could and boxed it up for the food bank.
“We didn’t lose any power, so we ended up sending a full tractor trailer of produce, dairy, and bakery goods,” says Annie.
It was delivered to MacDonald Island Park, a local recreation centre, and anyone who’d registered with the Red Cross could pick up food there.
The store’s warehouse also donated two tractor trailers of dry product, and two trailers full of bottled water were brought in to provide residents with drinking water.
It felt good to be able to help the community during a crisis, says Brad Bertch, co-Store Manager.
“We’re leaders in the community, just for that reason,” says Brad. “We’re probably the first grocery store that people reach out to when they're looking for any type of donation on a regular basis. When the flooding happened, we did our best and worked with our warehouse teams to get supplies here that we knew we needed.”
In recent years, Fort McMurray has been through a lot, from the wildfire to this flooding — and during a pandemic, no less. It’s been a difficult time for residents, but they’ve come together to support each other.
“The community is very strong,” Brad says. “Right now, people are volunteering just to help others clean up.”
