Six decades and three generations after it was formed, Berry & Smith Trucking remains a family business in the truest sense of the word.

It’s also equally committed to the community and is now donating $30,000 to the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation’s campaign to provide the medical equipment for the upcoming expansion of Penticton Regional Hospital.

Berry & Smith was formed in the mid-1950s, when co-founders Stu Berry and Ted Smith decided to merge their two small trucking operations in Naramata which hauled fruit and other goods such as coal, firewood and peat moss.

Now some 60 years later, it is among the biggest trucking firms in the B.C. Interior. In addition to Penticton, it has offices in Vancouver and Calgary with 180 employees and 110 trucks including lease operators, driving across North America. It also operates the transit service in Penticton for the City of Penticton and the RDOS (for going on 39 years) and has provided school bus service for the Okanagan Skaha School District for over 50 years.

Family still runs deep at Berry & Smith. President Matt Berry and vice-president Mark Berry head the company started by their father. Their sister Deb works in the front office and sister Julie is a former driver.

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A sizeable donation will be made today in Oliver by a local service club