Wearing bright red Santa hats and sporting equally bright blue backpacks, the team of REALTORS® at RE/MAX iREALTY Innovations was on a mission.
The goal was to find as many people experiencing homelessness and give them one of their branded backpacks filled with winter survival items such as toques, gloves, scarves and blankets.
“I’m one of those people who loves to donate and do charity work,” said Candace Craig, conveyancer at the Calgary-based office and organizer of the backpack giveaway. “The people we met were so thankful to take the gloves because their hands were frozen. It gets so cold here; I couldn’t imagine having to sleep outside.”
She said the team picked a “warmer day” to go walking about some of the parks and streets people experiencing homelessness frequently visit or stay.
“It was -20 C instead of -30 C and there wasn’t any snow, yet we still bundled up head to toe,” she said of the chilly December day. “Talking to these people, they were so grateful. The hot chocolate we brought went so fast because they were so cold. It was kind of hard because we wanted to give out more things.”
Craig said this was the first year of doing the backpack giveaway. For years she had been adopting a family over the holidays, providing them with gifts and meals.
“I wanted to change it up. We work downtown and I see the homeless people,” she said, adding she used to volunteer at one of the drop-in centres. “A lot of them don’t have the items we take for granted.”
Over the course of several weeks, Craig said 53 backpacks were collected – 40 of them donated by RE/MAX of Western Canada.
She said she was pleased with the support and is hoping to do even more giveaways next year.
