The Blow Away Hunger food drive came back last week, with southeast residents donating to the event put on by DiscoverEstevan.

That accepted both food that would go to the Estevan Salvation Army's food bank, as well as cash donations.

The amount raised for both areas outstripped the previous year's efforts.

Community Ministries Director Ronza Reynard details just how much was collected at the Southern Plains Co-op in Estevan for the Salvation Army.

"Blow Away Hunger was a huge success this year. We had over 1800 pounds of food come in, and give or take around $5700 dollars in cash and gift cards, so that's huge. That's probably the highest number of cash donations that we've seen during Blow Away Hunger, and the food was awesome."

In comparison, Blow Away Hunger last year raised just over 700 pounds of food.

That'll go a long way to shoring up their stores for the coming winter months.

"That's a really good kick-off to the Christmas season because we're hearing about lots of people doing food drives within their own companies. Having 1800 pounds of food is wonderful," said Reynard, "It's stocked on our shelves, and we'll have a little bit extra. It's going to help us going into December, and going into January even."

More events will be coming in during the holiday season to continue to help out the Salvation Army as well.

"We have our teddy bear toss coming up and we have our holiday train on the 18th of December. Again, more time for people to donate food to the food bank as well. A couple of items happening over the season," said Reynard, "But that was just a wonderful kick-off to the holiday season."

Oxbow also had a good year, as they raised over $1180 in dry food goods.