Forest keeper overcome by community support in Kelowna

The founder of the Okanagan Forest Task Force was brought to tears earlier this week after an outpouring of community support.

Blake has run OFTF since its inception in 2016, working to keep the Central Okanagan backcountry clean and free of dumping.

The task force — a non-for-profit run solely by volunteers — had their efforts sidelined this week after Blake’s F-350 stopped working.

After Blake shared the news on Facebook, a GoFundMe was started with a goal of raising $2,500 to help cover the costs of the repairs.

Today the GoFundMe has over $3,700 donated.

"I didn't even know it was started until one of our members Robin had messaged me and said 'I'm starting up a donation spot and we will see if we can get you some help'. And I was excited that he did, but I wasn't even thinking about it at the time.”

Touched by what Blake does for the community, Ken Hiles, with Kelowna Ford Lincoln wanted to help as well.

“The fact that Kane does all of this on his own time, and with my understanding, with his own money puts him in kind of a spot,” he said.

"We knew that there was a GoFundMe page and that there was money being raised there, but gave it the thought that we wanted to actually do the repairs so Kane and his group could use the GoFundMe money to fund what they are doing,” Hiles added.

The repairs on the truck will total over $3,000.

“It means the world. It’s a very emotional time. I never ask for anything in return, I don’t ask for help and then when Ford wanted to step up and do what they did it brought me to tears,” Blake said.

Blake tells Castanet he will use the donation money to purchase new supplies for the group.

“We are going to be updating our rakes and shovels. Some of them are missing handles,” he said,

The truck is expected to be back on the road by the end of this week.