It was a busy day at Fort York Food Bank on Friday.

The line snaked up to the front door for the drop-in food program, as more than 100 of the city’s most vulnerable came to collect a box of food supplies before the holidays. Volunteers helped moved things along, filling boxes with staples from their packed shelves, as others worked at the back door to receive food donations and hustle them out to the waiting crowd as fast as they came in.

The demand is standard for this food bank and when they aren’t busy with the drop-in program, they are running a hot food program that serves 100 meals a day, five days a week.

It’s hard work, but, by the time the new year rolls around, life for the volunteers will be a little easier thanks to the generosity of a Toronto Star reader and “a chain effect of kindness” which led to their troubled industrial oven being fixed.

It all started with a Santa Claus Fund story in November, which highlighted the work of the food bank and their challenges preparing meals in their College Street space that lacked a working industrial oven. The food bank’s hot lunch program is in great demand, but the agency’s minimal budget just covers rent and one salary, and nothing is left over for repairs. Volunteers just had to make do as best they can.

An anonymous reader spotted the story, reached out and offered to find a company that could repair the oven and pick up the tab.

Julie LeJeune, co-chair of Fort York Food Bank’s volunteer board, says it was an amazing offer.

“To have the oven fixed, would make things happen quicker, bigger and faster,” she says. “Having a fix like this is something tangible for a donor where the impact is visible and immediate.”

More kindness followed.

Joe Pacheco, co-owner of Danex Commercial Food Equipment Parts & Service in Mississauga, which did the repair, was so touched by the reader’s gesture and conditions at the food bank, he cut the labour costs of the six-hour job and offered to return to help more. His next project will be to fix a broken stockpot range, enabling volunteers to make soups and pasta sauce. They say they are looking forward to that.

“I was motivated by the [Star reader],” Pacheco insists. “She was willing to pick up the whole tab for the whole repair. It really is a small investment on my part.”

LeJeune and Natalie Isber, operational chair of the volunteer board, were on hand Friday to check out Pacheco’s work. The oven will be turned on in the new year after the vent hood and fire suppression system above it are inspected. LeJeune and Isber are hopeful other fixes may follow. They are also eyeing an expansion of their cold storage space.

The need was apparent Friday when LeJeune noticed a higher than usual flood of food donations. The receiving operation was non-stop through the morning and into the afternoon as trucks pulled up with frozen turkey and chicken, boxes of pineapple, cartons of carrots, even some pizza.

Shelves for their food bin program piled up also, stocked with Kraft Dinner, Chef Boyardee, chick peas, bags of cereal and bottles of juice.

“It’s the most food we’ve ever had,” said a flustered LeJeune.

“I think I am going to cry.”

That afternoon, staff from Ritz Carlton Toronto were on hand to present a $1,500 donation, collected through a charity auction. They also put their culinary skills to good use, under the direction of Ritz Carlton executive chef Paul Shewchuk, preparing and serving a turkey dinner. It was the hotel’s first event in a new relationship with the food bank.

The line for the meal went out the front door to the sidewalk, just as the food box program ended.

There was turkey and gravy, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, stuffing and buns, and as it was served, a volunteer sang “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” as he worked the receiving door.