Empty Stocking Fund: Decrease Mainland Christmas Bureau welcomes large, new headquarters as vacation marketing campaign kicks off

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With its help for native households and 40 different bureaus and companies, the Decrease Mainland Christmas Bureau is a lynchpin within the metropolis’s vacation charity efforts.

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Two years of COVID restrictions modified the best way the Christmas bureau performed enterprise, however not less than the non-profit has come out of the pandemic with new digs.

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The brand new constructing on Cordova Road is 10,000 sq. ft and “an actual warehouse, with loading bays and a small car parking zone,” says Chris Bayliss, the Decrease Mainland Christmas Bureau’s government director. The group occupied practically 8,500 sq. ft on two completely different flooring in its earlier constructing, on Pandora Road. Previous to that, it was housed in 3,500 sq. ft on Napier Road. Bayliss himself has been with the nonprofit since 1990, when he began out as a volunteer.

At present, the bureau helps a median of 1,000 households every year and co-ordinates with different charities to distribute greater than 145,000 gadgets. The bureau additionally presents practically $80,000 in grocery reward playing cards to households in want yearly.

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“For sure households to search out us, we would have liked a everlasting location,” says Bayliss. He expects to be within the present location till not less than the tip of its five-year lease, and maybe longer. He notes the generosity of the bureau’s earlier landlord, Leon Menkis, who handed away in the summertime.

“Our thought was we couldn’t afford Vancouver, however we discovered this place so it saves us having to arrange and tear down yearly, and likewise year-round donors can discover us as a result of we’ve at all times been in Vancouver. Our attain is a lot bigger now.”

Attributable to COVID protocols, the bureau stopped bringing in volunteers for the final two years. Bayliss and his workers labored behind plexiglass and wore their private protecting tools.

“So the households received their assist. But it surely was all appointment-based in a really sterile setting. Not solely our bureau however all of the bureaus and companies struggled via that.”

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For this vacation season, the bureau is once more limiting the variety of individuals on web site and asking individuals to register for appointments (households can enroll at lmcb/ca).

In addition to dropping “that volunteer dynamic and human contact,” most of the bureau’s main fundraising efforts and toy drives needed to be cancelled, not less than one completely.

“The Motorbike Toy Run went away, and won’t be returning in its conventional kind,” he says. Logistically, it proved simply too troublesome to proceed.

“As soon as COVID stopped it from occurring for 2 years, the timeline to place it collectively was not solely quick, but in addition required a considerable amount of workers sources,” says Bayliss, a Harley fanatic himself. “The truth that toy and financial donations had been diminishing for a variety of years, as had the variety of riders, made the choice to go from a toy run to a toy drop seem to be the logical selection.”

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As of this writing, the Motorbike Toy Drop Drive-Through and a Kruise 4 Youngsters toy drop have taken place. Different returning occasions that can carry toys and donations to the bureau embrace the Decrease Mainland 4×4 Toy Run, the Christmas Want Breakfast on the Pan Pacific, CTV’s Toy Mountain at Guildford City Centre, the Vancouver Giants Teddy Bear Toss and TransLink’s Reindeer Bus and Toys for Tots.

Many of the different bureaus are returning to “the pre-pandemic means of doing issues,” says Bayliss. “There’s a pent-up demand to do extra at Christmas time from our donors and our volunteers’ perspective, however none of us know precisely what it’s going to appear to be this yr. However our means of distributing toys can be very very similar to our earlier means of doing issues.”

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The Decrease Mainland Christmas Bureau’s appointments for needy households have doubled from final yr on the identical time, he says.

“The whole lot appears to be like promising proper now. I’m cautiously optimistic that our donors will step up like they at all times do. Each household involves the door that’s certified, we’ll deal with them. Like we at all times do.”

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