A 35-year-old tradition is back to help the younger population in Northwestern Ontario.
The three Walmart locations in Thunder Bay are participating in the Wish Tree campaign, which supports the Children’s Aid Society of the District of Thunder Bay.
Director of services Dana Leeder said that the campaign was able to provide 320 gifts for children and youth last year, and have a goal of 350 this year.
“We believe that every child should be able to open up a gift, and be a part of [celebrating] the holiday season,” Leeder noted. “This year we are targeting our pre-teens and teens; I think that people tend to think about the younger kids.”
Inside all three Walmart locations in Thunder Bay is a tree filled with snowman tags. Each snowman on the tree has a child's age and their holiday wishes. Once a gift is purchased, it can be placed under the tree in the collection receptacle with the snowman tag on top.
Yuchi Yang, who manages the Memorial Avenue location, has been involved with the campaign for a decade after re-locating from Southern Ontario.
“For a city with [a population of over 100,000] people, [the program] has [benefited because] so many people turn out to help out the kids. We're definitely a small community with a big heart, and I think that's the reason why we keep doing this [every] year,” Yang added.
Yang has seen the initiative evolve over the 10 years that he’s been involved, which included having to adapt through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We always [have] a little bit of friendly competition between the three stores here, and I remember during [the pandemic, the fears were] ‘I don't know if it's going to have a good turnout’. The community surprises [us every year] when we [have doubts about the generosity]. They always come and deliver the results, so I really want to [say thank you to] the customers and the community [as a whole]. They [don’t] let the kids down [and] they [don’t] let CAS down.”
