Dennis Chippa just felt the timing was right to relaunch his trio of Christmas books.
The executive director of The Gathering Place soup kitchen in North Bay put together three children's books back in 2015 with the goal to raise some money for Literacy Nipissing.
The three books are titled: "Santa Lost His Suit," "Back to Work for Santa's Elves," and "Crankpot the Underpants Elf."
All three have a North Bay connection to Christmas elves.
Chippa says he still gets requests annually at Christmas time for the books.
"That was fine, but I eventually ran out of books," explained Chippa noting some of the additional copies were destroyed in a fire at Literacy Nipissing.
"I had some copies at home but not many. So we got talking about it during the summer and it was my family that told me I should re-do those books. So it just kind of flowed from there."
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Chippa teamed up with Beatty Printing in North Bay who has published 1000 copies of the children's Christmas books.
He hopes to use the book sales as a fundraiser this time for the Gathering Place in conjunction with the 20th year of operation for the soup kitchen.
"We had not done anything for it and we really have not had much time quite frankly so I thought what a nice little legacy project for the Gathering Place to have this book and it kind of went from there," said Chippa.
Chippa says some sponsors gave the second publication of the books a boost.
"I just felt personally this was the year, I do not know why, I have been through some struggles of my own personally and professionally so this is the right year," said Chippa noting his father passed away this summer.
He notes he has become a grandpa since he first published the books. He feels there is something special about the togetherness that is created when reading a book to a child.
"Something just clicked in me that this is the year to do it and I think we need to go back to that," he said.
"I think we need to go back to basics, I think we need to do more togetherness. You cannot have more togetherness than sitting down and reading a book. Whether you are reading it to the little kid, or the little kid is reading to you."
The books go for $10 each or $25 for the three. Anyone interested in purchasing the books can email Dennis directly at [email protected]