Generosity from the Windsor-Essex community has delivered again this year for the Windsor Goodfellows.
Volunteers were out on city streets two weeks ago for their annual newspaper drive, and officials say while they were worried at first that the totals would finish behind last year that wasn't the case.
President Jennifer Wells says they ended the drive with $392,334 raised, and their goal going in was $375,000.
"For a single paper drive this is by far the highest earning one we've ever participated in," she continued. "So we're very, very thankful to the community who really saw us, stepped up and helped us this year."
The money raised will go towards supporting the Goodfellows programs, including their Christmas boxes, but Wells says they have more programs throughout the year that help out the less fortunate.
"We have a year-round food bank that operates on Tuesdays and Fridays, that serves thousands of people in our communities. We have a breakfast program which operates in 29 area schools, we have a shoe and boot program which costs us about $90,000 to $100,000 per year, and then we have a new lunch bag program," she said.
The lunch bag program is for individuals experiencing homelessness, who are provided with food on Tuesdays and Fridays no questions asked.
Wells says there were a few incredible things that happened during the course of this year's drive, including a volunteer named Danny going viral on TikTok while spreading the message.
"We really feel that Danny's message to the community really helped us. We also had a very large donor, Mr. Alan Quesnel, come through and say that they would match our paper drive. So he provided us an additional donation of $350,000."
Wells says they continue to receive donations, even after the drive ended, from people who participated in the mail-in campaign and thanks to the notoriety created through TikTok their online donations grew, and grew and grew.
Each year in late November, a team of Goodfellows spread out across the city to sell their traditional holiday newspaper and collect donations.
Delivery of this year's Christmas boxes will begin on Monday, December 12.
- with files from AM800's Rob Hindi