The temperatures outside may have been cold, but hearts were warm inside Common Good Cafe & Social House on Sunday afternoon for a last-minute fashion show and holiday “sip and shop” in support of Barrie and District Christmas Cheer.
Sandra Roberts, chief executive officer of Pie Media Group, hosted the afternoon of “fashion, fun and philanthropy” on Dec. 22 at the downtown cafe, which highlighted 15 local community members modelling styles from more than 10 retailers and brands.
More importantly, the event was organized in response to the urgent need to support Christmas Cheer and help the local charitable organization reach its lofty financial goal of raising $450,000.
As of Sunday morning the annual initiative — which helped provide food boxes and toy hampers to nearly 2,000 families this year — was “very close” to reaching that goal, confirmed Christmas Cheer president Sanda Yaquo
“I am excited to say that hopefully by the end of the day we should have hit our (goal) for the year,” she said, noting they were sitting at $442,000 prior to the event. “We are really hopeful that this is going to take us right over. (It’s) definitely a Christmas miracle.
"This morning all of the board members were on the phone and there was a little bit of squealing going on because we couldn’t believe we were there.”
Roberts said she’d been watching the social media “call-outs” seeking additional donations to help Christmas Cheer reach its financial goal, and decided she needed to find a way to help.
“I’ve been wanting to have a party and … it’s a great way to integrate not just attention to the cause but also to some local brands. Common Good was a great partner and they offered their space… (and) four days later here we are,” she said. “We’ve got some local models and some local children who have even been recipients of Christmas Cheer before that are in the show, so it is really close to my heart.”
“I don’t think I can think of anything more important that I could do at Christmastime than this right now,” Roberts added.
Seeing how everything fell into place so quickly, added Yaquo, was heartwarming.
“That’s what our community does. It’s pretty incredible,” she said.
Yaquo said distribution of the food and gifts went off extremely well this year, with approximately 65 per cent of the distributions going out on Thursday.
“Friday was a lighter day, and we were actually able to go in on Saturday as well and make some last-minute reach out just to anybody else we could possibly help. It was a really fulfilling weekend overall,” she said.
Money raised from Sunday’s event will be used to help launch the 2025 campaign, added Yaquo, explaining they need approximately $340,000 just to launch a campaign.
“That’s just on gift cards alone. Whatever we bring in today is our start to launch (Christmas Cheer) in 2025.”
Once all the final donations were counted the final total raised was $451,200, exceeding the goal by $1,200.
