A little friendly competition never hurt anybody - especially when it comes to the power of giving.
Since its inaugural toy and cash drive for less fortunate families in 1980, the Squamish community has been going above and beyond to help Community Christmas Care ensure everyone in the corridor has a gift to unwrap on Christmas morning.
Preparations for the 30th annual Community Christmas Care project are already underway and chair Darcy Reimer is challenging businesses and individuals to come out and donate at the annual toy and cash drive at McDonald's restaurant on Dec. 1.
Residents of Squamish and the surrounding area are encouraged to bring an unwrapped toy and/or cash donation to the east corner of the McDonald's parking lot between 6:30 and 9 a.m.
"We are counting on the community's support as we provide Christmas hampers to families and individuals right here in the community," said Reimer.
Community Christmas Care is a Christian organization led by churches and local ministerial in partnership with the Helping Hands society.
This partnership began out of a general consensus that Squamish would be better off served by one charitable organization rather than numerous individual business and community groups at Christmas time.
Last year, the organization assembled and distributed about 270 hampers and raised $18,000 over the holiday season.
"The need is great again this year, so your help is needed once again," said Reimer.
He said families in need throughout the corridor can fill out an application online at www.communitychristmascare.com. Application forms for hampers are available at Coast Garibaldi Health, churches in Squamish, Sea to Sky Community Services, Helping Hands and the Howe Sound Women's Centre.
"Everybody that fills out an application lets us know the ages of the kids and the gender," he said. "Then we have volunteers that divvy out those toys that are actually given to us based on that information."
The toys are usually slotted for younger children and cash is reserved for gift certificates because, said Reimer, "it's almost impossible to guess what a teenager wants for Christmas."
"What we try to do is give them gift cards for Wal Mart or major box stores here in the corridor," he said. "At Wal Mart they can go buy their techy stuff or iPods or whatever it might be."
He said it's hard to know where the youth would want to shop.
"We'd love to support some of the smaller stores but usually it's a box store because you really don't know what that kid wants and the box stores usually have something for everyone."
He said the past several years have been very rewarding with Squamish raising substantially more money than all other corridor communities.
"We're actually quite proud of ourselves here in Squamish because usually our McDonald's fundraiser exceeds the amount that Whistler raises the whole holiday season," said Reimer. "This is good friendly competition."
This is Community Christmas Care's seventh year partnering with Mountain FM and the event will be broadcast live from 6:30 to 9 a.m. with Jennifer Manchester challenging local businesses to get involved and meet or beat competitor donations.
Shout outs will be made over the air to competing businesses as recognition of their donation.
Reimer said he hopes the spirit of giving is as strong as ever.
"We've never fallen short yet," he said. "It speaks well of the generosity of our community."
Grocery stores, churches, schools and The Chief office are also accepting non-perishable food items and toys.
