by Joan Levesque
The Vallentyne Bake at Healthy Food Technologies (hft) Almonte was a HUGE success Friday February 14th. In a previous story we told you that local brothers Bill & Gord Vallentyne both died within months of each other of cancer and that they were cared for by the Almonte Hospital.
The Vallentyne Families were one of the first ones to welcome Ed & Doris Atwell owners of hft and their family, William, Faith & James to Almonte when they moved here. They became good friends!
In January 2013 hft received their new bake machine and needed to put it to the test, so they decided they would do some baking and take it to Gord Vallentyne as they were told Gord had cancer also. At that time hft made a note “Vallentyne Bake” They packed up their donuts and headed to Gord’s home to deliver the donuts but heard that Bill, Gord’s brother died from his cancer that day. They were hesitant to go forward but went to their home and Gord’s wife Colleen invited them in. It was a day of conversation and they sat around eating donuts and Gord kept describing the donuts by saying “they’re right there Ed!”
Ed Atwell along with son William, & a friend John Tang started working at 10:00 pm Thursday night and worked through the night. Other volunteers showed up starting as early as 7:00 am. and as the day progressed more volunteers followed throughout helping to roll the dough, cut the dough for both donuts and éclairs, bake them, glaze them and occasionally one of them would make a not so perfect donut or éclair, so they got to sample that mishap! We also got some great tips to baking donuts and éclairs. Volunteers at the front office boxed up customer orders and collected their money. Customers were greeted by smiles and hugs if you rang the bell.
Specials thanks to all volunteers, plus Horizon Milling for donating the flour for the Vallentyne Bake, Chris & Shelly Armstrong for graciously selling donuts from their Clayton General Store and Bonnie Vallentyne, Bill & Gord’s sister who works at Lee Valley Tools and her co-workers for ordering 38 dozen donuts!
A total of $2,260.00 was raised through the sale of the donuts and all the money was donated to the Almonte Hospital. A total of 3,000 donuts were made that day with the help of volunteers along with the Atwell (hft) owners.
A HUGE thank you also goes out to Ed, Doris, daughter Faith & their sons James & William along with a few of their friends for being so generous to do this in honor of the Vallentyne’s and so generously donating the money to our local hospital in honor of Bill & Gord.
Well done Healthy Food Technology, Almonte volunteers of the bake and of course the customers who came out to buy the donuts and éclairs.
Can’t wait until the next Vallentyne Bake in 2015 to do it all over again.
Healthy Food Technologies (hft) is located at 25 Industrial Ave. just past The Independent Grocer on the left hand side and sell their donuts and éclairs every Friday morning from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm.
If you would like a large order please call ahead to 613.256.9900 to place an order.