Despite the challenging times, officials with the 75th annual Santa Fund announced Thursday night they hit their goal just hours before the start of delivery.
"A late flurry of donations pushed the total collected to a record-high $190,000 – which met the principle fundraising goal of covering costs – although that’s only because fewer than expected applications were submitted for the holiday food and children’s gifts," said a news release.
“We projected 600 families, but to our surprise, we only received applications from 430 families, which requires about 468 baskets. This included 20 Ukrainian families celebrating their first Christmas with us in North Bay.”
Canadore College's Commerce Court Campus was bustling with activity around 5:30 on Thursday evening for the start of the Santa Fund hamper packing process.
The lineup wound its way through hallways to the epicentre of activity at Canadore College where the bundles were put together.
Geoff Richardson, Santa Fund co-chair, was thrilled to see the public back helping again.
"We are really excited to have the public back this year," admitted Richardson.
"For three years we were not even allowed to have the public here, it was just pre-screened elves we called it, but now we see people coming out in droves and packing some hampers for us, get them all ready for delivery on Friday which happens at 9:30 in the morning we really need help this morning to help deliver all these hampers despite the bad weather."
"We have all these people here because they have not been able to do this for a few years but also everybody is excited and of course, North Bay is going to step up," added Tracy Sloan-Richardson, co-chair for the Santa Fund in 2022.
The pandemic, supply chain issues and other factors inflated the costs for both food and gifts to a daunting total of $217,000 if 600 applications were approved – and there was no reason to predict a drop of in applications due to the challenging times.
“These new numbers caught us by surprise. We worked closely in the last several days with Harvest King to see if we could adjust our totals that were ordered in the summer,” Richardson said.
Brad Gavan remembers packing Santa Fund hampers with his father as a kid. Now he is helping organize the event at the busy post secondary institution where he works.
"The past three years Canadore has come in to help out, especially through the COVID-19 years to deliver the food, pack the food," said Gavan.
"The Santa Fund is something close to Canadore's heart. We have tons of people who have always volunteered we are just happy to find a home for them to pack the baskets, and deliver them to the families in need. Just a great thing to do at Christmas time."
Donations during the last few days of the 2022 North Bay Santa Fund made a difference as volunteers deliver Christmas spirit to more than 550 families and as many as 1200 children.
