THUNDER BAY — Reid’s Furniture announced the winner of the first charity Christmas Tree auction.
Eight local charities decorated a tree in hopes of winning a $5,000 donation to their charity. All of the canned goods used as a vote were donated to the RFDA.
With a tree that represented the path to recovery, the DEK Foundation went home with an extra $5,000 on Saturday.
“We are a nonprofit organization in the community that helps folks that are struggling with mental health and addiction, we support them and meet them where they're at. We are bridging gaps in the community, which is a beautiful thing,” said Carolyn Karle, founder of the DEK Foundation.
Karle said the foundations long term goal is to have a place for women to stay after treatment.
Becca Chicorl, volunteer, said the DEK Foundation offers a sanctuary for people who are struggling.
“Often times what happens when people are fresh in recovery or trying to start their recovery journey, there aren't a lot of resources, especially in Thunder Bay being a small community.
“What DEK does is it offers a place for people to engage to get to know each other. It gets the word out of what they're struggling with and just like Carolyn said, it meets you where you're at.
“There are so many different avenues to recover and what DEK really does is tries to honor the individuality of every person and give everybody something to look forward.
There are no limits to what people can access when it comes to getting together and doing things, Chicorl said.
After it was announced the DEK foundation had brought in the most amount of non-perishable food items there was excitement all around, Karle said.
“I have to thank Robbyn from Balloon Stylings and Becca because they are the lead on the decorating. The girls worked their wonders and their magic.
“We have such a beautiful display here and a lot of great people in the community that are affected by addiction. So, we've all come together and we've won the 5,000.
“With that money, I think this year we've talked about perhaps hosting another pasta night for the recovery community. We have a really great event each year at the Columbus Center.
Karle said it is wonderful to be able to have the money to do that for everybody.
“We like to have fun and we're always looking for activities to do in the community. We wanted to help the RFDA, we thought what a great connector.
“All the decorations on the tree are handmade and it really gave people in recovery an opportunity to come together and honor those that they've lost.
Robbyn Fraser, from Ballon Stylings, said she really wanted to be a part of this tree decorating.
“I've had personal experiences with those with addiction. It hit home and I volunteered right away to say I wanted to create a pathway of balloons up around the tree, different shapes and size, to represent a path of recovery.
“As we were going through the decorating process, Becca had the exact same concept and she did it with links of chains where she went around the entire city, having people write little messages on the links and we wove them into the balloons and then around the center of the trees, all the handmade personalized ornaments.
“It just frames in a very eclectic kind of way that shows the journey that one would take through the addiction process, and that it's not all the same, everybody's individualized, but the end goal is to have a healthy life,” Fraser said.
Ashley Higgins said there are people on the tree that were very close to her.
“Two of my best friends are up there. It’s really touching to be part of that and create a memorable bubble for them.
“I am very isolated since coming back into recovery. Being part of the DEK Foundation has brought me back into the community, and the DEK Foundation has helped me in so many ways, I’m just really grateful,” she said.
Patricia Poohachoff, manager of in-home design at Reid’s Furniture, said the hope is to hold the event again.
“I would like to see double the number of trees happening and more community participation.
“We couldn't have even anticipated the amount of people that actually came through the store to support our community. It was really overwhelming.
“We had actually collected in total 2,820 food items for the RFDA and the winner of the Christmas Tree Decorating competition who has 1,533 cans under their tree was the DEK Foundation.”
