Colliers Project Leaders founder, wife make record-breaking $2.5M donation to Ottawa Food Bank
Colliers Project Leaders founder and former CEO Franklin Holtforster and his wife Birgitte Alting-Mees have donated $2.5 million to the Ottawa Food Bank, the largest donation in the organization’s 40-year history.
The charity announced the donation at the Ottawa Food Bank warehouse on Tuesday.
According to a press release, the donation will be given to the organization in 10 instalments of $250,000 each over the next 10 years, supporting food distribution to local agencies fighting food insecurity.
“My parents taught me that sharing what you have, no matter how much, can change lives,” Holtforster said in a press release. “Their example instilled in me a deep sense of gratitude and responsibility for the abundance I’ve been fortunate to experience.”
“Birgitte and I support the Ottawa Food Bank because no one should have to choose between food, warmth and shelter. When you give, you’re not just helping someone today. You are building a future where fewer people have to face impossible choices. And when you give consistently, you create momentum. You become part of a collective force that can shift what’s possible,” he said.
Holtforster and Alting-Mees have supported many of the city’s charitable organizations over the last 15 years, such as the Ottawa Riverkeeper, Ronald McDonald House Ottawa and the Boys and Girls Club, to name a few.
The press release said Holtforster and Alting-Mees made an anonymous donation of $350,000 last year but decided against remaining anonymous to help raise awareness of the Food Bank’s mission.
With food insecurity growing across the country, the Ottawa Food Bank said long-term commitments like Holtforster and Alting-Mees’s are needed more than ever.
“We could not do our work without the community’s support,” Rachael Wilson, CEO of the Ottawa Food Bank, said in a news release. “Ninety-eight per cent of our funding comes from the community. We receive no federal government funding and two per cent of our budget comes from the City of Ottawa. Generous multi-year gifts like this one provide sustained support that help the Ottawa Food Bank invest in addressing root causes of food insecurity.”
The donation announcement was coupled with the unveiling of a new mural wall at the Food Bank’s warehouse designed by Dave Lafreniere, founder of Ottawa-based company Mural Magic.
Holtforster retired and stepped down as CEO of Colliers Project Leaders in 2022.
