Play with Your Food Regina raises over $106K to fight food insecurity

Play With Your Food Regina surpasses its fundraising goal to help Carmicheal Outreach.

After a goal of $75,000, “Play with Your Food Regina” (PWYF) smashed expectations for their fundraising, currently sitting at $106,085 as of Saturday afternoon.

Their 2025/26 campaign, which opened in early June of 2025, raised funds up until the start of March. On Saturday, 33 teams, including 150 participants, gathered at the University of Regina Riddell Centre to compete in the 24-hour challenge.

“This 24-hour event is more of a celebration of the volunteers who put in all that hard work throughout the year and raise more money,” said Chelsea Steenbock, the chair of the volunteer team.

Throughout these 10 months, the fundraising has been going to Carmichael Outreach.

Sponsors also provided raffle prizes, which four participants took home.

In the challenge, the 33 teams will compete amongst each other in board game challenges. Steenbock said something simple like board games can bring people together, especially for a good cause.

“Everything that you find in life, you can find in a board game,” she said. “If you like economic development and building a city, that’s Machi Koro. If you want to go to space and explore what it would be like to start a corporation and build a community, that’s Terraforming Mars.”

It’s another event hosted by Matt Robertson, the founder of PWYF, which started back in 2013. Robertson started PWYF after his late mother.

“When you get people to maybe set down their devices and turn off the screens, people connect and you can connect with a shared narrative of a board game,” he said. “Some are cooperative, some are competitive, there’s variety for everybody in the hobby.”

The first time that he hosted PWYF, he hoped to raise $5,000, but ended up raising $13,600. $106,085 is not the final number just yet, as donations can still be given until April 1.

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“We’re always looking for growth; we want more people,” Steenbock said. “The need in the community is strong, The number of people experiencing homelessness is growing. The more people we have to come out to events that support the community, that register and teams that help us fundraise, really the sky’s the limit.”

Janis Miller, director of development at Carmichael Outreach, said that the money has and will go to their daily meal program, which serves 3,500 meals on average per month. Carmichael has 15 programs and services that they provide.

“We are really hoping that year after year, I can get more involved, and we can have more of an affiliation versus them just being a fundraiser that’s on the side of us,” she said. “So, working together more closely to really pull together where they can tap on our resources, we can lean on them for other support too, and just really work together as a community and a team, which I think Regina is very well known for, is pulling together.”

In prior events, fundraising went to Souls Harbour Rescue Mission. Since their relaunch in 2023, fundraising has gone to Carmichael.