Making the holidays brighter in B.C.
Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau distributes toys and joy from Hope to Squamish
It doesn’t solve all the world’s problems — it doesn’t aspire to — but it brings smiles to the faces of thousands of children across B.C. on Christmas morning.
The Province’s Empty Stocking Fund has entered its 98th year, hoping to exceed last year’s fundraising total of $301,709.08.
The newspaper covers the administration and overhead, meaning every penny collected is handed out to 27 charities in the province.
“We’re in our 86th year, so we’re a youngster,” said Chris Bayliss, executive director of the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau, one of the major recipients of Empty Stocking Fund money.
“I think it speaks to the fabric of the Lower Mainland, of British Columbia, our donors and (Empty Stocking Fund) donors just keep doing it year after year.”
The Christmas Bureau collects toys throughout the year and at Christmas distributes them through its 17 local bureaus, from Hope to Squamish and sometimes farther afield.
“It depends on who needs what,” Bayliss said.
This year, 100,000 toys, clothes, puzzles, stocking stuffers and food vouchers, worth about $1 million in all, will be distributed to low-income families.
“Our mission is simple,” Bayliss said, “to help families at Christmastime, one toy and one family at a time.”
Some of the coming events tied to the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau include the Lamborghini food and toy drive on Saturday, Dec. 10, from noon to 3 p.m.
Open to owners of Lamborghini and Weissach cars, the drive will be held at the Lamborghini Vancouver showroom at 1720 West 2nd Ave.
Santa is scheduled to arrive around 1:30 p.m., pulling up in a Rosso Mars Aventador LP700-4, which looks like something from Hot Wheels but costs around a halfmillion bucks more than the toy.
Other events include: The 10th annual Victor Ghirra toy drive (named after the late “man with the golden heart” who would dress as Santa and brings toys to B.C. Children’s Hospital), also on Dec. 10, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Riverside Palace banquet hall in Richmond; the Pan Pacific Christmas Wish breakfast, where in exchange for a new unwrapped toy you get a hot breakfast, Tuesday, Dec. 13 from 6 to 9 a.m.; and the ever-popular Giants teddy-bear toss, in which thousands of stuffed animals are thrown onto the ice after the Vancouver Giants score their first goal of the game, this year at the hockey team’s new home at the Langley Event Centre on Friday, Dec. 16.
Each Lower Mainland bureau operates slightly differently, but in Vancouver, for instance, parents can shop at a depot for gifts (as opposed to picking up wrapped boxes marked ages 10-12, say).
It offers dignity to the parents, Bayliss said.
“We get cards, we get phone calls, people are crying, saying how we saved Christmas for their families. We know we can’t help everybody, but we try our best to make sure all the people who need the help get it.”
Bayliss began volunteering with the Bureau in 1990.
He was in a devastating motorcycle accident in 1996 and could no longer work at his job in a sawmill.
As he rehabbed, he was able to spend more time volunteering and in 1999 the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau offered him a three-month contract as executive director.
“And here I am,” the 52-yearold said. “Volunteering is woven through my life, and it’s changed my life in ways I never expected. If you’d told me in 1996 I’d be doing this …”
The immediate reward, the obvious and heartwarming one, is knowing a lot of kids who wouldn’t otherwise are going to have a happy Christmas, he said.
“But truly, the most rewarding part is working with all these awesome groups and people. Without our donors, without our volunteers, we’re nothing.
“They are truly amazing.”