In the photo: Kamloops Food Bank representatives Jeff Arnold (left), and Bernadette Siracky receive a cheque from Kamloops Daily News, Christmas Cheer Fund founder Gregg Drinnan, as does Kamloops Hospice executive director Wendy Marlow. Daily News publisher Tim Shoults (right), also presented cheques to Michelle Walker of the Kamloops YMCA-YWCA Y Women’s Shelter and Diane Stuart from the Kamloops United Church Pit Stop program outside the Daily News building in downtown Kamloops.
The 2013 Kamloops Daily News Christmas Cheer Fund, which raised $89,575.70 from Daily News readers and local businesses, sent out cheques to its five recipient charities this week, three weeks after the Daily News ceased publication.
The recipient charities are Kamloops Food Bank, Marjorie Willoughby Snowden Memorial Hospice Home, New Life Mission, Kamloops United Church’s PIT Stop program, YMCA-YWCA Y Women’s Shelter.
The Daily News Christmas Cheer Fund was founded in 2002 at the urging of Daily News sports editor Gregg Drinnan, who had launched and led a similar initiative at the Regina Leader-Post before coming to Kamloops.
Drinnan persuaded then-publisher Dale Brin to let him launch the Cheer Fund in Kamloops and personally led the charge for 12 years, organizing the committee that selected the recipients, writing dozens of stories every campaign and documenting every donation made along the way.
The Cheer Fund grew from relatively humble beginnings of $21,897 to an all-time record of $101,261 in the 2012 campaign, with every penny donated going directly to the charities as Daily News staff handled all administrative duties.
Over the past 12 years, the fund raised and distributed a total of $667,714.68 to local charities.
The Regina fund has raised more than $2.5 million dollars for local charities in that city since its founding which, combined with the amount raised in Kamloops, equals more than $3 million raised for local charities in the two communities due to the advocacy Drinnan.
“There are many things about the Daily News that made me proud to be a part of the team there, but none of them more than the Christmas Cheer Fund,” Daily News publisher Tim Shoults said.
“The impact that this fund made on our community was immense and all of it is due to Gregg and the business team at the Daily News who co-ordinated the donations, in particular Jo-Anne Lovesy, who Gregg always referred to as ‘The Head Elf’ in his Cheer stories, and Debbi Beauchamp, our business manager.”
Tax receipts for donors will be distributed through the recipient charities as they have in past years.
Meanwhile, Shoults said refunds for subscribers and advertising customers who have balances with the Daily News and final payments to carriers are currently being processed and cheques will be distributed to customers in the next few weeks.
