Mr. and Mrs. Clause made a surprise socially distant appearance at this year’s Fill A Sleigh Day event, hosted by Red Apple Fernie on Dec. 5.
The annual event collects monetary and gift donations for the Snow Valley Christmas Cheer Committee, a local organization dedicated to spreading holiday joy by giving families in need Christmas-themed gift baskets.
“Christmas is a really hard time, especially this year, and we just want to spread a little bit of cheer to everybody wherever we can,” said Red Apple manager, Stacey Bickford.
“Our motto, and Snow Valley Cheer’s motto, is no family left behind. It’s not no person, not nobody, but no family – that’s why it is so important for us as Red Apple to include mums and dads in this, because a lot of charities will only include kids.”
According to Bickford, since kicking off the fundraiser three weeks ago, the Red Apple has well-surpassed their original goal of raising $4,000 for Snow Valley Cheer.
In addition to the donations collected at the till, along with those received from photos with Santa, Saturday’s event wrapped up the annual fundraiser by striving to fill a ‘sleigh’ with donated items.
Helping make the fundraiser possible this year was the Elk Valley Cruisers, who not only contributed a number of Hot Wheels cars to the toy drive, but also offered up one of their trucks to pose as this year’s sleigh.
The Red Apple remains open until 7 p.m. on Saturday, with a further 10 per cent of all sales going towards Snow Valley Cheer throughout the day.
For more information on Red Apple’s events and fundraisers, visit their Facebook page.
To learn more about the Snow Valley Christmas Cheer Committee, or to nominate families for future campaigns, head to their Facebook page.
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reporter@thefreepress.ca
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