KEEPING HIS PROMISE
Childhood memories spur VP to donate to Santa Claus Fund every year,
As orders for his packaging company go, the account is small potatoes.
But Paul Colicchio’s heart was in every box he’s shipped out to the Star’s Santa Claus Fund for more than 40 years now.
“It’s something that is very sentimental for me,” said Colicchio, vicepresident of Pickering’s Ellis Packaging Ltd., who has personally handled the fund’s gift-box order since 1974.
And like so many with long Santa service, Colicchio’s commitment to the fund stems from his own childhood impoverishment and the lonely, giftless Christmas times he endured as a boy.
His father, a firefighter, died a hero in 1943 helping passengers escape a bomb-bearing train that had caught fire as it entered a station in the southern Italian town of Foggia.
He then helped move the train out of the station, saving more lives at the cost of his own.
“He knew he wasn’t going to come out alive,” said Colicchio. “He was so badly burned that they couldn’t even recognize him.”
That was 43 days before Colicchio — the youngest of six children — was born. And his father’s death left his family unable to afford the Jan. 6 Epiphany gifts that other kids received.
Later, at age 6, he and an older brother were sent away to study and live at a far-off Florence school, set up for the children of firefighters who had died on duty.
“None of us, especially myself and my brother, could afford to go home by train,” Colicchio said.
“There was no money whatsoever, either to buy presents or go home.”
Colicchio’s company supplies the festive gift boxes at cost.
“There’s no profit we make on this particular project. We charge just enough to pay for the equipment, the materials and the labour.”
This year, some 45,000 of his boxes will be packed with toys and clothing and distributed to underprivileged kids across the GTA.
That’s a tiny order for a firm that typically deals in millions of cartons for clients such as the food giant Mars Inc.
He first took on the account as a young sales representative for the now-defunct Telfer Paper Box company.
And when he moved to Ellis in1980, he brought the Santa account with him and kept it as his own personal project as he moved up through the ranks to vice-president.
It’s been a labour of love for Colicchio — one he’s kept his hands in even as he shed other duties working up to his looming retirement.
“I kept that account because it’s close to me and close to what I went through,” he said.
Even when he does fully retire in two years, Colicchio has made a deal with Ellis to oversee the Santa fund account for as long as he’s able.
“I know what it’s like not to receive presents and I think it’s a great thing that (the Star) is doing,” Colicchio said.