After four weeks of sorting, wrapping and bagging gifts for families, delivery day for 630 CHED Santas Anonymous is here!
The doors to Santas Depot opened at 9 a.m. and through the day, thousands of volunteers will deliver bags of toys to children all over Edmonton.
“Delivery day is always an exciting time at Santas Depot,” executive director Lana Nordlund said. “Seeing thousands of volunteers line up in the cold to help their fellow Edmontonians is what Santas is all about.”
For the first time, there will only be one day for deliveries. The depot will open 30 minutes earlier than previous years and volunteers will be welcome to take bags to deliver until the last bag leaves the depot.
“We went down to just one day for deliveries because we have such a large number of people show up to volunteer year over year. That has allowed us to deliver gifts in one day,” Nordlund said.
A second round of volunteers used to attempt to deliver any bags that couldn’t be delivered on Saturday, on Sunday, but most of those were coming back as well. Instead, volunteers will be instructed this year to leave either the bag of toys with an adult at the house or if no one is home, information on how to get the toys is left.
What remains the same is that there is no pre-registration required to volunteer to deliver toys. Drivers only need to show up with their licence and proof of insurance. Elves of all ages are welcome to volunteer to deliver on delivery day.
“Every year I stand in line waiting to deliver toys and I am amazed at the number of people around me,” 630 CHED program director Syd Smith said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s snowing, raining, -30 or above zero, that line will always fill the parking lot and everyone is in a great mood.”
This year, Santas expects to deliver gifts to 21,551 children.