Donnelly Group staff to spread Christmas cheer to the needy

For many people, working in a restaurant or bar feels kind of like having a second family. There’s a big kitchen and warm food. Managers are like the moms and dads, and staff feel like a giant group of siblings and cousins.

But because the hospitality industry tends to attract transient workers — students and travellers — a lot of restaurant families are separated from their real families.

“Theoretical orphans,” is how Damon Holowchak, a partner in Vancouver’s Donnelly Group, which owns pubs like the Lamplighter in Gastown, refers to many of his staff.

The Donnelly Group has approximately 600 staff covering front of house and kitchens in over a dozen local bars, restaurants and barber shops. A few years back Holowchak realized many of them have nowhere to go on Christmas. “We have so many transplanted folk, Ontario, Alberta, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and during the holiday season not everybody has an opportunity to go home and visit family.”

So for the sixth year in a row, the Donnelly Group is rounding up its theoretical orphans for a Christmas tradition that involves giving, and getting.

Donnelly invites all employees that have nowhere to go on Christmas to come down to the Lamplighter that day to help assemble 1,000 bags, each containing a sandwich, a pair of socks, a toque and a hot drink or soup. They fan out across the city and hand out the care packages to whoever needs one, before going back to the Lamplighter, where staff chefs put on a Christmas dinner for them.

Army and Navy helps out with a fantastic deal on the socks and toques, said Holowchak, and the staff make and package all the sandwiches themselves. Even getting things ready is fun. “We keep them charged up with coffee and hot chocolate,” said Holowchak. Then the staff spreads out across Vancouver to distribute the kits to people on the streets.

“Maybe the biggest things that hits home every year is the amount of need that is out there, and how quickly those care packages disappear.”

From left, Chris Badyk, Kye Agrios, Garrete Resler and Damon Holowchak will be among other Donnelly Group staff, who will spread out across downtown Vancouver on Christmas Day to distribute soups and sandwiches, socks, gloves and toques to those less...