Written By David Gomez
LUCAN - Inside a hangar at Paul Hodgins Airport in Lucan, surrounded by cardboard boxes and aircrafts, volunteers spent the morning of August 28 turning pallets of donated merchandise into something local organizations could put to use.
The community sorting event marked an effort by Lionhearts to extend its food and goods recovery model further into Middlesex County and London. Volunteers opened boxes, separated food from household products and organized everything from coffee and canned goods to cleaning supplies, personal-care products and other merchandise.
Lionhearts’ primary role is recovering surplus food and household goods from businesses and redistributing them at no cost through charities and organizations already serving people in their communities. Its London operation began in 2024, initially with food and household goods from Amazon.
Matthew Koopman, executive pastor at Gateway Church, told volunteers the church has been working closely with Lionhearts and was invited to help lead its expansion into the area. Gateway has a campus in Lucan.
He described the possibility of Lucan becoming a local hub that could help supply surrounding communities rather than relying exclusively on centralized distribution.
Koopman said Lionhearts has collected and distributed more than $2 million worth of goods to approximately 72 agencies in the region during its first two years in London. Donations come from several businesses, with Amazon among the major suppliers.
In Lucan, volunteers worked through Amazon donations, first identifying food products before tackling boxes containing a much less predictable assortment of goods. Items were grouped with similar products and repackaged for distribution.
Organizations participating in the event could take items they could use, with one firm condition: donated goods cannot be sold and must reach recipients free of charge. Anything remaining after the sorting event was to return to Lionhearts’ warehouse for future distribution.
For Koopman, however, the value of bringing the initiative into communities such as Lucan extends beyond the merchandise itself.
“If we can get more people engaged in caring, that alone will improve our communities in far more ways than resources ever could,” he said.
