Years ago, TrackTik started supporting l’Ecole St-Vincent-Marie in Montreal-Nord due to our belief that we should actively serve our community if we want better tomorrows. In this spirit, every holiday season we coordinate an employee-led collection of gifts out of our head office in Montreal. TrackTikers, their friends, and families — the “elves” — are paired with children from the St-Vincent-Marie school who send them a letter with their desired gift for the holiday season. The busy elves usually oblige them, get said gifts, and distribute the presents to their lucky recipients at school. This initiative gains momentum every year, with record numbers volunteering to participate.
As is no surprise, 2020 altered the way in which our annual “holiday elf” tradition was carried out. Due to the lockdown, we had to find a workaround that could still bring the children in St-Vincent-Marie school joy, while respecting the Covid-19 measures in place. The TrackTik headquarters became a site for contactless gift drop-off and the annual gift giveaway will be handled directly by the teachers in their respective classrooms during the last week of school.
While we were not able to interact with the children this year, some TrackTik elves created a video to spread the holiday cheer.
2020 was a record year. We had so many volunteers for the initiative that there were more elves than children! While several TrackTik elves got matched to give toys, the remaining eager participants got paired up with other children through the Librairie Asselin and bought them books on subjects that interested them. From sports to animals to music, the children from St-Vincent-Marie school had a wide range of interests that our elves were happy to cater to.
In our efforts to live up to not only our goal of serving our local community, but also that of fostering diversity and inclusion within it, TrackTik decided to give one book to the school for each gift that a elf TrackTik dropped off — resulting in a donation of 70 books this year. The book that we selected is called “Big Dreamers: The Canadian Black History Activity Book for Kids” authored by Akilah Newton and Tami Gabay. The “Big Dreamers” book series celebrate the inspiring contributions and achievements of Black Canadians, whose stories are often left untold. We hope that by sharing these stories, and providing these educational opportunities for the children of the St-Vincent-Marie school, diversity and inclusiveness will be a more prevalent part of our community of tomorrow.
Happy Holidays!