Don Murray with Richmond Dry Cleaners and Nicky Cawson with BNI Alberta (photo courtesy of Nicky Cawson)

By Emily Keller

BNI's Northern Connection chapter

Share the Warmth campaign continues as over 900 more donations come in

Dec 23, 2019 | 6:06 PM

More winter wears have been donated to local groups from the Business Network International’s (BNI) Northern Connection chapter in Grande Prairie.

The BNI’s Share the Warmth campaign ran this past November where over 200 items were donated to Odyssey House.

Nicky Cawson with the BNI Northern Connection chapter, says the success of the campaign led to her friend from her time with the Arctic Winter Games to help out as well.

“We’ve been coordinating for the past month trying to figure out how to get this to Grande Prairie,” said Cawson. “We were able to donate over 900 brand new items, still in plastic bags, of warm winter coats, warm vests, long-sleeve shirts to the Odyssey House, the Salvation Army, the Friendship Centre and then Rotary House as well.”

Cawson says she was contacted through Facebook by her friend in Hay River, Northwest Territories.

“That’s what brought tears to my eyes is that the community that I used to live in, through the power of media, through the power of Facebook saw what we were doing and they donated as much as they could, because it’s quite a small town, and they said ‘you know what? Will you use these?’ and I’m like, if we can get them down here yes, I go, ‘somebody will use them’.”

This was the first year the Share the Warmth campaign was held, and Cawson says they plan on making it an annual tradition.