Santa Claus waves to children on the street Thursday evening in Redcliff during the first night of the Santa Claus Is Coming To Town parade series, which will extend to a Saturday trip to Cottonwood and Dunmore.--NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Don’t fret Cottonwood and Dunmore, Santa Claus is still coming to town!
The surprise hit Santa Claus Is Coming To Town parade – which aims to spread Holiday cheer while drumming up donations for the Medicine Hat News Santa Claus Fund – will be back out in full force Saturday to hit the areas of town that were missed in its inaugural five-day run last week.
“The Santa Claus Fund said that they’ve had a lot of late requests. Usually they handle their initial intakes in the beginning of December, but there were so many late requests,” said IG Wealth Management executive consultant Nathan Nunweiler, who helped organize the initiative with IG Wealth Management, the Santa Claus Fund and local emergency services. “This has really rebuilt their stockpiles so they can help a lot of other Medicine Hat and area families.”
After five nights of trucking Santa around the city, more than a dozen truckloads of toys have been brought in to help make Christmas a little brighter for local families. With any luck, they’ll bring in a few more on Saturday’s route.
“The donations have been great. Every night we’re coming back with three, even four truckloads of toys,” said Nunweiler, adding cash donations are also being accepted at mhsantafund.com. “The cash donations have been great. People have been asking how they can donate online and they’ve actually been going through with the donations online.”
Nunweiler says he got the idea for the parade after seeing a food bank in Moose Jaw do something similar, however that initiative only sent Santa down main roads, while Santa Claus Is Coming To Town boasts an expansive route spanning hundreds of kilometres through Medicine Hat, Redcliff and Dunmore.
“We’ve done over 300 kilometres of residential road. It’s been quite an undertaking but every corner you turn, you just see more kids. Santa is in the back of my truck, so to see people first of all see us and wish us a Merry Christmas, then to see Santa – ‘It’s Santa!’ – I swear parents are just as excited as the kids are.”
Nunweiler added the plan is to keep the parade going for years to come. For more information on Saturday’s parade route, which starts at 5 p.m., visit the Santa Claus Fund’s Facebook page.
“We really want it to be an annual thing, and I think as the years go on and COVID restrictions drop, I could see it being a little bit bigger,” said Nunweiler.
