Mountain FM – Originally posted December 2, 2014.
Some unexpected #PricelessSurprises have left our local hamper campaigns flush with toys in a remarkable story of giving.
From my understanding, both the Bow Valley Christmas Spirit Campaign and Banff’s Santa’s Anonymous were contacted separately by someone offering to drop off ‘some toys’ for kids and families in the Bow Valley. After a few changed drop-off dates, they were informed the delivery would be on Sunday and they’d need a few volunteers to help unload toys in the warehouse. Thinking it might be a cube van with a few boxes, Banff had two people waiting at Town Hall and Canmore about four at their warehouse and were totally blown away with a giant 18-wheeler truck pulled up. Each campaign received about 8 pallets piled with toys, thousands and thousands of toys, in total about 10 times what they’d each give away in an average year.. This was all part of MasterCard’s #PricelessSurprises campaign and they’ve reportedly been making similar donations to hamper campaigns in Calgary and the surrounding areas. A film crew was in tow so I wouldn’t be surprised (#PricelessSurprised?) to see some shots of this in an upcoming feel-good holiday commercial. You can also see photos of the toys filling Banff Town Hall and the Christmas Spirit Warehouse above.
Both our local hamper campaigns are currently trying to figure out what to do with all these toys, but questions about storage and sharing are good problems to have! Andrew Bolt from the Bow Valley Christmas Spirit Campaign joined me again this morning and says their hampers (and the Mountain FM Christmas Toy Drive) could still benefit from gifts for older kids and teens and shared a few suggestions. He also wanted to remind people of upcoming events including Thursday night’s big Food Drive.