Matt Stayner

TimberTown Building Centre

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Matt became familiar with the milk bank through Executive Director Jannette Festival. Both share a serious commitment to their daughters’ volleyball community and Matt had the opportunity – between bumps and spikes – to hear of the plans to build Canada’s only community-based milk bank. As the owner of TimberTown Building Centre, it was natural that Matt could be of assistance as the milk bank approached the daunting task of building a state-of-the-art milk-processing lab.

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“What Jannette was trying to do tugged at the heart strings of my wife and I,” he shared. “I had never thought about how to get safe mother’s milk to infants in need. It was an amazing concept. Jannette had seen it working in the States and I thought - we have premature babies here too and this was instrumental. It’s a whole new world.”

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Assured that Jannette and her team had figured it out, Matt felt compelled to help. “If she was prepared to all of the things to get a milk bank operational, it became natural that I would step in and help with any of the building materials.”

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During the milk bank’s construction, Matt ensured that building supplies and materials, specialized contractors and installers were coordinated and taken care of. At a time when the milk bank’s focus was on meeting the needs of sick and fragile babies, recruiting donor mothers who had never heard of milk banking and building relationships with hospitals and the medical community, it’s no wonder why Matt and his TimberTown team remain an important part of the milk bank to this day. For Matt, it was business as usual. “You do your part, and I’ll do my part,” as he says it. It’s the idea of “doing their part” that continues to keep Matt and his wife interested in the ongoing growth of the milk bank. “Who is more at risk than a premature baby?” he asks, “These babies are totally innocent and have no control, but by giving to the milk bank, you are giving to something that’s supported and run by local people.”