A giving spirit runs in the Teasdale family
Worden Teasdale got closer to the original spirit of the Star’s Santa Fund than most people.
Now 81and a prominent figure in Canadian golf circles, Teasdale was in university when he met Joseph S. Atkinson, son of Toronto Star and Fund founder Joseph E. Atkinson, while researching a term paper. He was left with a lasting impression.
“When I was in university, I needed to speak to a newspaper person for a paper I had to do,” said Teasdale, past president of the Royal Canadian Golf Association.
“I tried to speak to Mr. Atkinson, thinking I probably wouldn’t get a reply. Not only did I get a reply, but he invited me to his house. He was such a nice person and I met his daughter. I just remember how helpful he was, and it stuck with me to this day.”
With the Christmas season approaching, Teasdale plans to once again make a donation to the Proudfoot Corner of the Star Santa Fund, something he says he has done for “as long as I can remember.”
It was Atkinson Sr. who started the Santa Fund in 1906 with one goal in mind: to brighten the lives of underprivileged children over the holidays. Having come from a poor family himself, Atkinson Sr. learned from a Methodist minister about more than 30 families facing a bleak Christmas in York Township.
He appealed to Star readers through a front-page story, asking them donate whatever they could so that it “may be expended in bringing pleasure to little hearts where pleasure is most seldom felt. There are many hundred of little folks in this wealthy city, and in this prosperous year (1906), to whom Christmas and Santa Claus are unfortunately meaningless terms.”
Some 300 children received gifts that year, delivered on horse-drawn sleighs. The following year, the number soared to 1,150 and continued to grow through the decades.
Today, some 45,000 gift boxes are delivered by volunteers to children across Toronto, Brampton, Mississauga, Ajax and Pickering. It’s the reason the call goes out every year to help raise the money needed by Christmas to keep the tradition going.
This is the 115th running of the Santa Fund, and those gift boxes will contain: a hoodie, hat, mitts, socks, a book, small toy, cookies, a toothbrush and toothpaste.
The sports wing dates back into the 1940s, and became a fixture thanks to the likes of former editors Milt Dunnell, Jim Proudfoot and Dave Perkins. It was Perkins who renamed the Sportsman’s Corner in honour of Proudfoot, after his death in 2001.
Teasdale remembers reading Dunnell, Proudfoot and Perkins, and following the stories and anecdotes of donors through their columns. He also recalls a legacy of giving by his daughter Kathryn, a race-car driver who died in 2016 at age 51.
“She did a lot of charity work, especially for children,” said Teasdale, who got in nine holes at his beloved Markland Wood Golf Club on Thursday during a brief warm spell. “The Star Santa Fund and the (Proudfoot Corner) became important to us. Kathryn passed away, but I wanted to keep that spirit of giving going.”
Kathryn (Kat) Teasdale won over 180 races in Canadian and NASCAR series through the 1980s and ’90s, and did charity work for children’s causes such as Easter Seals Canada, as early as age 10.
Teasdale looked back to the day he was born –— July13,1939
— and recalled that he was gifted a copy of the front page of the Star from that date.
“You looked at the page, and part of it was a story on the Star Fresh Air Fund,” Teasdale said of the Star’s summer fundraiser that sends needy kids to camp.
“So much of what the Atkinsons were doing at that time is still important today. So many things are happening at Christmas, but the kids are the most important thing, especially now with COVID-19 … It just isn’t fun, so anything we can do to make it a happier time for the kids, then you want to make that happen.”